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THE 
FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

A Study of the Teaching of Jesus and Paul 




THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
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MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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TORONTO 



THE FUNDAMENTALS 
OF CHRISTIANITY 

A STUDY OF THE TEACHING OF JESUS AND PAUL 



BY 
HENRY C. VEDDER 

Professor of Church History in Crozer 
Theological Seminary 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






Copyright 1922. 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and Printed Published January, 1922. 



FERRIS 

PRINTING COMPANY 

NEW YORK CITY 



FEB -8 1922 

)nU654545 









/-u-> 



TO 

MY TEACHER IN THEOLOGY 

AUGUSTUS HOPKINS STRONG, D.D., LL.D. 

READER, IF YOU FIND HERE AUGHT GOOD AND TRUE 

THANK HIM. 

IF YOU FIND UNTRUTH AND HERESY 

BLAME ME! 



CONTENTS 

Prolegomena ..... ix 

Chapter I Page 

Jesus the Peasant — Poet of Galilee . . i '^ 

Chapter II 
Jesus the Prophe^t and Teacher . . . 32 ^ 

Chapter III 
Jesus the Revealer of God . . . . 63 ^ 

Chapter IV 
Jesus the Herald of the Kingdom ... 89 

Chapter V 
Jesus the Saviour of the World . . . 116 

Chapter VI 
Saul the Urban Pharisee . . . .140 

Chapter VII 
The Making of Paul the Apostle . . . 169 

Chapter VIII 
Paul the Christian Rabbi .... 203 



Chapter IX / ^'J 

Paul the Speculative Theologian . . . "226 



Chapter X ^£>^i 

After All, What is Christianity? . . . "^264 



PROLEGOMENA 

I 

The specific sources for the writing of such a book as this 
are, of course, the Gospels, for the teaching of Jesus, and 
the Epistles of Paul, for the teaching of the apostle. But 
we cannot understand these without taking into account 
the whole literature of the Hebrew people, of which these 
writings are an inseparable part. Though the modern Jew 
refuses to recognize the later collection of writings known 
to us as the ISTew Testament, he cannot deny that it is as 
Jewish as the older collection. The apostles may have been 
apostate Jews, but they were certainly Jews. Only a single 
gentile writer, so far as we know, contributed aught to the 
^ew Testament ; and even Luke was Jew by conviction, if 
not Jew by birth. 

These writings are, without exception, deeply imbued 
with the spirit of the people who produced them and of the 
times in which they were composed. Jew and Christian 
are agreed in regarding them as a divine revelation (though 
the JeW;, of course, would deny this character to the later 
collection) , but all intelligent people of both religions have 
come to recognize in these books a human element, as well 
as a divine. They were not handed down from heaven, 
or even dictated by God to human amenuenses, but com- 
posed under the guidance of the divine Spirit by men who 
had the limitations of other men. The writers were not 
of a uniform grade of mentality or spiritual insight, and 
so great differences are discernible in the writings ; in par- 
ticular, the older books give us a different ideal of God 
and teach different ethics, from the later. Men can no 
longer shut their eyes to this fact; the wonder is that for 
ages they were able so completely to ignore it. N^o candid 

ix 



X PROLEGOMENA 

reader of the Scriptures can now fail to see that they 
many times flatly contradict each other, and none of the 
processes of mechanical ^^reconciliation'' that satisfied our 
fathers will remove this difficulty for us. There is but one 
honest method of reconciliation available: to recognize 
these collections of writings as the record of a progressive 
revelation; to admit frankly that the earlier writers ^^saw 
through a glass darkly/' and that even some of the later can 
hardly be said to have seen ^^face to face." In other words, 
God revealed himself by degrees to men, as they were able 
to receive knowledge of him ; and the revelations of earlier 
time were of necessity fragmentary and imperfect. 

It inevitably follows from this understanding of the 
nature of the Bible that religious teachers can no longer 
be suffered to quote the words of Scripture, on the assump- 
tion that all are of equal value and authority. The old 
method of citing ^^proof texts" indifferently anj^where from 
the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelation is as 
dead as Julius Caesar. It follows also that the later reve- 
lation is clearer, higher, truer than the earlier ; and where 
the two conflict, as they so often do, the later supersedes 
the earlier. And for the Christian, at least, the highest 
revelation of all is contained in the teachings of Jesus. 

It should seem that one who calls himself a Christian 
might be safely assumed to be pledged by his chosen name 
to accept Jesus the Christ as his highest authority in 
religion. It might justly be assumed, one would think, 
that he is bound to evaluate all other religious teaching in 
accordance with the words of his avowed Master and 
Teacher. Whoever and whatever accords with His words 
is to be accepted. Whoever or whatever differs irreconcil- 
ably from His words is to be rejected. Why, indeed, 
should any man who refuses to abide by this principle as 
the touchstone of truth wish to call himself a Christian? 
Surely, if he refuses to bow to the supreme authority of 



I»itOLEGOMENA XI 

Jesus^ lie might choose some other appellation than Chris- 
tian that would better fit him. 

This book will not attempt formal proof of the foregoing 
propositions. They will only incidentally^ and almost 
accidentally, furnish subject of discussion. They are the 
fundamental data on which the entire discussion proceeds ; 
so nearly axiomatic, in the author's view, that the mere 
statement of them should secure hearty assent from the 
thoughtful Christian reader. Indeed, his fear is that more 
readers will pronounce them truisms than untruths. But 
it is only fair to give warning that any reader who seriously 
dissents from them will do well to lay the book aside at 
this point, as it would probably be pure waste of time and 
mental energy for him to read further. For if these 
fundamentals are untrue, or even doubtful, the following 
pages are worthless. 

II 

Evangelists and preachers of a certain type are very 
fond of saying in public that ^'^they believe the Bible from 
cover to cover,'' that they ^ ^believe every word in the Bible, 
from Genesis to Revelation" (only, that type usually says 
^^Revelations"). Even theologians educated enough to be 
reasonably intelligent, and so to know better, profess and 
teach belief in the absolute inerrancy and infallibility of 
the Bible. Nay more, they wage open and bitter warfare 
on all who will not pronounce their shibboleths. ]^early 
all the so-called ^^Bible Schools" are given over to this 
heresy, which they proclaim to be the only orthodoxy. 
One very prominent religious newspaper (at least, it makes 
high pretensions to religion) loses no opportunity to 
defame every theological institution in which it thinks 
this doctrine is not taught. What's in a name ? especially 
in religious parties. There are ^^Evangelicals" utterly des- 
titute of the gospel spirit; ^^Catholics" who are in mind 



Xll PROLEGOMENA 

and temper hopeless sectarians; ^^Liberals" who are the 
perfection of illiberality ; and ^^Orthodox" who hold fast 
what is not, never was, and never can be Christianity. 

All signs show that a determined and systematic propa- 
ganda of this view of the Bible has been undertaken, with 
the explicitly avowed purpose of branding as heretics all 
men and institutions that fail to conform to this standard 
of orthodoxy, and the more than hinted purpose of estab- 
lishing some new form of organization, if that prove neces- 
sary to the attainment of the leaders' ends. In these days 
when the majority of Christians are thinking and talking 
much about Christian unity, we are seriously threatened 
with a new schism. 

It is a time therefore for plain speech. In this age of 
the world no man can avow belief in ^^the whole Bible, 
from cover to cover," without casting painful suspicion 
upon either his sincerity or his intelligence. ITobody needs 
to accuse him of such defect ; he accuses himself when he 
so speaks. I^o man who makes public proclamation of 
this belief could stand cross-examination for five minutes 
in the presence of the very audience that unthinkingly 
applauds his words. Before half a dozen questions had 
been asked, he would be hedging and explaining and 
retracting. There is no educated man living who really 
believes the Bible from cover to cover. There is no half 
educated man who believes the Bible in that wholesale 
way. No man can make such profession sincerely unless 
he has escaped education altogether. Men who say such 
things are talking buncombe, playing to the galleries. 

There are few people of any age or any schooling who 
have read their Bibles with any degree of intelligence or 
care, without finding statements that have perplexed them, 
and in some parts ethics that have astonished and re- 
volted them, as well as contradictions and inconsistencies 
that they could neither deny nor explain. Only an inher- 
ited reverence for the Book, or, better still, personal experi- 



PROLEGOMENA Xlll 

ence of the high spiritual worth of large portions of it, 
have kept many from refusing to read further. Others 
may have refused to read further because of just these 
difficulties. 

Those who know how shallow and false is this dogma 
of Biblical infallibility, those who have learned from 
Christian history how and why it came to be held, those 
who know how unscrupulous are some of its advocates 
and how ignorant others, those who realize how it con- 
tradicts the hard-won results of Biblical study through 
the centuries, those who appreciate how damaging such a 
dogma is to the cause of true religion, how impossible 
it is to build an edifice of Truth on a foundation of lies — 
these must have the courage of their knowledge and con- 
victions, must accept the challenge proffered them, must 
begin without delay to teach the plain Christian people 
the truth about the Bible, the whole truth and nothing 
but the truth. If they hesitate, if they listen to the 
counsels of their timid and half-hearted fellows, the 
churches will fall a prey to vociferous ignorance, and 
true religion will be betrayed in the house of its friends. 
The path of boldness, of utter frankness, of rugged hon- 
esty, is the path of safety. 

Ill 

Many of the clergy, who have been adequately in- 
structed in a good modern theological seminary, and con- 
sequently know the facts about the Bible, are afraid to 
take their people into their confidence and tell them the 
truth. Some fear that if they should tell the truth, their 
people would regard them as heretics and turn against 
them; and they cannot bring themselves to quarrel with 
their bread and butter. Others excuse themselves from 
the duty of fearless truth-speaking, on the plausible plea 
that the pulpit is no place for discussing such matters, 



XIV PROLEGOMENA 

which should be left for class rooms and learned period- 
icals to thresh out. As to this, it may be said that of 
course it would be unwise to carry into the pulpit tech- 
nical discussions, and expect the ordinary congregation 
to act as a jury and decide questions about which com- 
petent scholars differ. 

But this is not at all what is meant by telling people 
the truth about the Bible. There is no important truth 
about religion that cannot be made clear to the ordinary 
believer. 'No one who has had experience in teaching in 
a Sunday school doubts that even minds of children 
are capable of taking in any important truth, when a 
properly trained teacher puts it before them. The aver- 
age Christian congregation is fully competent to imder- 
stand the general results that have been reached, within 
the last century especially, by historical, exegetical and 
literary study of the Bible. The results can be stated 
in untechnical language that the reader of any daily 
newspaper will comprehend wdthout undue mental effort. 
And every preacher, when he takes a text of Scripture as 
subject of his discourse, or even as a mere motto, by so 
doing attests the traditional theory of his office: that his 
chief function is to expound the Scriptures to his people. 
How shall he honestly discharge this function, while he 
leaves them in ignorance of fundamental truth about 
the Bible? Truth that it much imports them to know, 
truth that would greatly alter their way of looking at 
all other religious truth, truth so vitally important that 
if they remain ignorant of it they cannot be intelligent 
Christians? There can be no excuse for such dereliction 
of duty that will stand slightest examination. 

At the present moment no duty makes a more imperious 
call on the Christian minister than the duty of telling his 
people all the truth about the Bible. Claims have been 
made for the Bible, and are now made with fresh insist- 
ence, that the Bible does not make for itself. The valid- 



PROLEGOMENA XV 

ity of the Christian religion is staked by many noisy 
champions of it on impossible theories of the Bible's 
origin, meaning and authority. If those who know this, 
and also know what is the truth, preserve a prudent silence, 
how shall they excuse themselves for their failure to 
speak out? 

Oh, but they fear they may unsettle men's minds and 
wreck the faith of some of Christ's little ones, if they 
should speak! That is a coward's plea. No mans faith 
was ever wrecked by truth, who had a faith worth saving. 
One lacks trust in God, the author of all truth, who fears 
to speak it. It was our Lord himself who assured us 
"The truth will make you free" — falsehood can make only 
slaves and dastards. Speak, my brothers in the min- 
istry of the grace of God; speak, as you are called to be 
God's prophets; speak the truth without dilution or 
camouflage ; and with God be the rest ! 

IV 

What, then, should the people be taught about the 
Bible ? They should be taught first of all its proper place 
in the Christian religion and warned against a cheap and 
harmful, even a superstitious, bibliolatry. Christianity 
and Mohammedanism are often said to be alike in this, 
that both are religions of a Book. This is far from the 
truth. Mohammedanism may be the religion of a Book; 
Christianity is the religion of a Person. Jesus the Christ 
is its corner-stone, not the Bible; He, not it, is the ^^author 
and perfecter of our faith." With Paul, every believer 
says, ^'I know whom I have believed'^ — ^whom, not what. 
Once let people get it firmly into their minds that the 
essence of the Christian religion is a personal experience 
of God's love, through Jesus who has revealed him to us 
as our Father in Heaven, and their faith will be built on 
a Rock and nothing thenceforth can shake it. Until they 
have this experience and comprehend its significance, they 



XVI PKOLEGOMEXA 

are at the mercy of every wind of doctrine that blows. 
'The Bible, and the Bible only the religion of Protestants'' 
was never true, and it has lost what semblance of truth it 
might have had when Chillingworth said it. 

Xext to this, people should be taught that the authority 
of the Bible does not depend on mens theories and doc- 
trines about the Bible. The inspiration of the Bible is a 
fact, not a dogma. A hundred generations have been 
finding in it something unique in spiritual quality. ]^o- 
where else have they been able to discover such light and 
life, such comfort and strength and peace. For centuries 
men have resorted to it for sorely needed help in their 
struggle to escape from sin and attain goodness, and 
have had their spiritual energies renewed and their 
wills braced for further contest. The authority of the 
Bible does not depend on what ecclesiastical Powers have 
decreed, or on what theologians may have taught about 
it, but on what it is. It authenticates itself as God's 
word to the soul that is reaching' out after the Most Hisrh, 
as a father's call in the dark authenticates itself to a 
frightened child. In the Bible we hear and recognize our , 
Heavenly Father's voice and our spirits joyfully respond. ' 
This is the fact of inspiration — a personal experience of 
the highest validity, which is totally unaffected by this 
theory or that about the Bible. What matters it to us 
who wrote the various books, or how, or when, or why, 
if we thus recognize in them the voice of our God ? 

People should be taught the facts about the historical 
origin of the Bible. They should leam that the Bible is 
not one book, but two separate collections of books — 
not one book, but a library. The very name embodies 
this historic fact; it was originalh xd (3i6/aa, the 
books, or, as we so often say, the Scriptures. These two 
collections are the best of the surviving writings of an 
extraordinary race during more than a thousand years. 
Tlioy contain, as we might expect, many different types 



PROLEGOMENA XVll 

of literature: history, drama, lyric poetry, orations, es- 
says, apothegms. Books whose composition extends over 
a thousand years, and that touch men's lives at so many 
points, could hardly fail to be of different degrees of 
value, according to the intelligence and spiritual insight 
of their authors. Ten centuries must show progress in 
religious ideas — or else retrogression; in any event, change. 
That apparently innocent mutation of name from bibles 
to Bible, has done much to encourage the unhistorical 
notion of One Book, entirely homogeneous in character 
and contents, coming perfect from the mind of the Holy 
Spirit, without admixture of error, every part necessarily 
the equal of every other part, and teaching the same ideas 
of God and man from earliest composition to latest. This 
notion about the Bible, which may be called the popular 
theory, is such a perversion of facts lying on the very 
surface of the writings, that any person of intelligence 
and education ought to be heartily ashamed of being its 
advocate or defender. 

People should be taught that the making of these two 
collections was a slow process, and that the result was 
long in doubt. The Jews in the time of Christ, and 
for long after, were not agreed as to what books should 
be admitted to and what excluded from their sacred writ- 
ings. Ten generations of Christians lived and died before 
our New Testament assumed its present form. What was 
the determining principle in the formation of the two 
canons? Study of the facts discloses a common prin- 
ciple in the making of both: a winnowing process grad- 
ually separated the present books of the Bible from a 
much larger collection of similar books, because these 
were found, in the religious experience of successive gen- 
erations, to have a superior spiritual quality. After vir- 
tual unanimity had been thus arrived at, ecclesiastical au- 
thority formally decreed that these books and no others 
should thenceforth be regarded as Holy Scripture. The 



XVlll PROLEGOMElSrA 

Bible is thus one of the most striking illustrations in 
history of the law of survival of the fittest. The experi- 
ence that made the Bible a v^hole has kept it such to 
this day. 

People should be taught that, while infallibility of the 
Bible is a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church,* it 
has never been the official Protestant doctrine. Infalli- 
bility of the Bible has been so strenuously advocated by 
some Protestant theologians, however, and accepted by so 
considerable a part of clergy and laity, that it may be 
called unofficial Protestant doctrine, but it has never been 
declared in any Protestant creed or confession of faith. 
What has been the result of this attempt to make this 
doctrine Protestant orthodoxy? For several generations 
the clergy have been influenced by every bribe this world 
can offer — hope, honors, wealth, social consideration — and 
by every threat this world can devise — disgrace, persecu- 
tion, stripes, chains, death — to maintain the infallible 
correctness of every word contained in the Bible ; and as a 
net result faith in the Bible has been steadily weakening. 
Is it not about time to try another policy? 



It is an extraordinary fact, yet fact indubitable, that 
the very persons who make loudest professions of belief 
in the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, and insist 
most strenuously on the reverent treatment of the book, 
are the very persons who treat the Bible with least rev- 
erence. They show their faith by their works less than 

*"For all the books that the Church receives as sacred and can- 
onical are written wholly and entirely, with all their parts, at the 
dictation of the Holy Ghost; and so far is it from being possible 
that any error can coexist with inspiration, that inspiration not 
only is incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as abso- 
lutely and necessarily, as it is impossible that God himself, the 
supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true." Encyclical 
Proindentissimus Deus, of Pope Leo XIII, November 18, 1893. 



PROLEGOMENA XIX 

any other Christians. The men now posing before the 
public as the special champions of the Bible and almost 
the sole defenders of its authority, are nearly all Pre- 
millennarians. But the doctrine of the speedy coming 
of the Son of Man to reign with his saints a thousand 
years can be made to appear a doctrine derived from 
the Bible only by the most careless, not to say dishonest, 
exegesis. Under pretext of extreme devotion to the Bible, 
Premillennarians distort and falsify the Bible in the most 
barefaced manner. Therefore, people should be taught 
the truth, namely, that there is no teaching in the Bible 
about a millennium in connection with the second coming 
of Christ. There is not so much as a hint of such 
doctrine. Premillennial doctrine is a manufacture "out 
of whole cloth'' of a doctrine that has not the slightest 
support in the Bible. 

There is but a single passage, a very brief one, in 
the whole Bible that speaks of a reign of Christ for a 
thousand years. That passage is in the Revelation, a book 
of impassioned poetry, of profuse symbolism, the inter- 
pretation of which has caused more difference of opinion 
among Christian scholars for centuries than any other 
part of the Bible. Here are the words: 

And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, 

And authority to judge was given them. 

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded be- 
cause of the testimony of Jesus and the word of God, 

And whosoever did not pay homage to the Beast nor his 
image, 

And received not the mark upon their foreheads and 
upon their hand ; 

And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. 

The rest of the dead did not live till the thousand years 
were completed. 

Several things are distinctly stated in this vision: it 
is before the general resurrection, and the reign of Christ 



XX PROLEGOMENA 

is with a strictly limited portion of his saints: such as 
had lost their lives in a great persecution, and such others 
as had refused to do homage to the Beast. However 
the vision may be interpreted, these limitations cannot be 
disregarded. The persecution in the writer's mind may 
have been that under Js"ero, or that under Domitian, or 
some other. This is a question of little importance, 
because in any persecution in the Koman Empire a great 

/ part, probably the greater part, of the Christians were 
not molested at all. Many who were arrested, and openly 
avowed their faith, and steadfastly refused to sacrifice 
to the gods or the Emperor, were subsequently released 
when the fervor of persecution declined; others were put 
to death. Only these two classes, the martyrs and the 
confessors, are seen by John as sharing with the Lord 
this millennial reign. And this is absolutely the only 
reference in the w^hole Bible to a reign of Christ of a 
thousand years. Hence, the statement above that the 
Bible does not contain a doctrine of the reign of Christ 

I with all his saints for a thousand years — which is the 
^^millenniar' doctrine — is not only warranted but com- 
pelled by the facts. 

How then do the Premillennarians, with their loudly 
proclaimed devotion to the Bible, contrive to make their 
self-invented doctrine appear to be the teaching of Scrip- 
ture? Why, very simply. They first read the doctrine 
into the Bible and then read it out again. They quietly 
assume, to begin wdth, that this passage in the Revela- 
tion teaches a reign of Christ ^vith all his saints, instead 
of with some — a meaning that, as we have seen, the text 
will not bear. Then they combine with this perverted 
passage all that Jesus and his apostles have said about the 
second coming of Christ; and all that Hebrew prophets 
liave said about Messiah's kingdom; and anything else 
anywhere in the Bible that their ingenuity can bend to 
their use. And out of this hodge-podge of unrelated texts, 



PROLEGOMElSrA XXI 

wirested violently from their connection and made to 
bear meanings of which their authors never dreamed, they 
make a doctrine of the millenninm. And they have the 
colossal impudence to call this doctrine Scriptural ! 

This method Premillennarians fatuously suppose is 
showing great reverence for the Bible ! And the men who 
do this, cap their lying exegetics with a charge of heresy 
against all who refuse to interpret the Bible in this scan- 
dalous fashion. For it is really nothing less than a scan- 
dal, a great scandal and outrage, against which those 
who truly love and reverence the Bible should delay no 
longer to make public and emphatic protest. The men 
who tear the Bible to bits, in order to piece together a 
crazy-quilt of unrelated texts, and publish this to the 
world as ^^the fundamentals of Christianity," must not 
be suffered a day longer to pose as the champions of 
the Bible, the only Christians who to-day are standing 
between Holy Scripture and the forces of infidelity. 

It would be a little different if these men possessed 
any real knowledge of the Bible, any Biblical scholarship 
worthy of respect. But it would be difficult to single 
out a man in their ranks whose opinions on questions 
of scholarship are respected by other scholars. Most of 
the party are men who have either had no theological 
training, or have taken a course in some ^^Bible School" 
that gives no instruction in the original Scriptures. The 
greater part of their ^^knowledge" of the Bible is knowl- 
edge of things that aren't so. And, as usually happens, 
their dogmatic assurance is in inverse ratio to their sound 
scholarship. We hear of the pride of knowledge; there 
is such a thing, without doubt, but the pride of knowledge 
is humility itself compared with the pride of ignorance. 
God save the Bible from some of its professed friends! 

It is strange indeed that men will learn so little from 
the history of this doctrine. The records of the Christian 
centuries may be called a museum of millenniums. The 



XXU IPHOLEGOMENA 

millennium has come — and gone — more times tlian one 
can easily coimt. In spite of our Lord's declaration that 
not even the angels in heaven know the hour of his 
coming, deluded disciples have again and again ciphered 
out the exact day for the beginning of his millennial 
reign. Some have learned enough from experience not 
to commit themselves to a specific date and content them- 
selves with the pronouncement that the reign is to begin 
'Very soon.'' Their cheerful hardihood is not so won- 
derful, perhaps, as that there should be foimd in every 
generation a multitude that no man can number of silly 
souls, incapable of receiving truth but avid of falsehood, 
always waiting anxiously to be hoaxed, the predestined 
prey of every crack-brained fanatic, credulous above all 
regarding any error that is proclaimed with a tone of 
authority and made plausible by juggled texts of Scrip- 
ture. The great showman was right: one is born every 
minute. 

VI 

One or two personal words in closing these prefatory 
remarks: Attentive readers will not fail to not^ that 
some of the words of Jesus are cited in the following 
pages more than once; and that certain ideas appear and 
reappear in the discussion, sometimes with no great vari- 
ation of form. Such readers, one hopes, will not at- 
tribute these repetitions to slovenly thinking or careless 
writing. There is good reason (as the author judges) 
for such repetitions ; and, at any rate, each case has been 
carefully considered, and the text as it stands represents 
the best effort of which the writer is capable to convey 
his thought to others. He may have failed in judgment, 
but he protests that he has not failed in labor. The entire 
book has been rewritten thrice, and much of it a fourth 
time, in the attempt to achieve clarity and brevity. 



PROLEGOMENA XXlll 

The author has not the slightest claim to speak for 
the theological schools, beyond the fact that he has been 
a teacher in one of them for more than a qnarter-centurv. 
He makes no pretense of being their official spokesman, 
nor should they be held responsible for anything herein 
said. The notions here expressed are probably more 
radical than seminaries are prepared to avow. The author 
is fairly certain that one at least of his own colleagues 
would repudiate a considerable part of the book, and it 
is doubtful if a single one would approve the whole of it. 
But whatever they may think of this performance, the 
seminaries stand for modem scholarship, for fearless in- 
quiry, for candid discussion. They hold that a Christian's 
attitude toward religion and church should be expressed 
by the maxim of Decatur — ^with a difference. ^^My coun- 
try! May she ever be right, but, right or wrong, my 
country!" was that gallant sailor's celebrated toast. The 
Christian's watchword is, "My religion and my Church! 
if right, to keep them right; if wrong, to make them 
right.'^ It is wholly in that spirit that the chapters fol- 
lowing have been written. 



THE 
FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

A Study of the Teaching of Jesus and Paul 



CHAPTER I 
JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 



Jesus wrote nothing. He was content to follow the 
method traditional among his people^ the method of oral 
instruction to a few disciples, varied by occasional dis- 
courses to larger assemblies, fearlessly hazarding his golden 
precepts upon the memories of his hearers. In this he 
was by no means unique. Of the world's paramount 
religious teachers, Siddhartha, Zoroaster and Socrates also 
left their disciples to gather up and commit to writing 
the maxims of their Masters. Only Confucius and Mo- 
hammed left behind them a written word for which they 
Vv'Ore personally responsible. 

We do not know, in the case of Jesus, if this method 
was matter of choice or of necessity. He may have been 
unable to write, as Mohammed seems to have been. The 
incident of the Pericope, where he is described as writing 
on the ground(^) is indecisive, for he may only have ap- 
peared to spectators to be writing words : and it is not in 
harmony with another passage of undoubted genuineness 
in the same Gospel, ^^How does this fellow know letters, 

(') John 8; 6, 8. But the entire Pericope (John 7:53-8:11) is 
now recognized as an interpolation in this Gospel of an incident 
doubtless true, but belonging originally to some other book. This 
makes such a detail of the story as the alleged writing of Jesus less 
convincing. By a decision of the Holy Office, February 13, 1897, 
confirmed two days later by the Pope, Catholic exegetes are required 
to believe that the Pericope is genuine and an integral part of the 
Fourth Gospel. 



2 FU]S^I)AMENTALS OF CHKISTIAKITY 

having never learned ?"(^) It is true that ^^letters" 
Yeai|ji|(JL<xTa may not be used here in the classic Greek 
sense of ^* rudiments/' for we know from Josephus that 
it was a common word for ^^sacred learning." The only 
literature to a Jew was the Old Testament Scriptures. 
But the speakers at least intended to suggest that Jesus 
had been trained in no rabbinic school and we believed 
therefore to be practically illiterate. 

The frequent quotations from the Old Testament in 
the sayings of Jesus have often been cited as evidencing 
a thorough acquaintance with the sacred writings of his 
people, so thorough as to presuppose both ability to read 
and much study. But a critical weighing of those quota- 
tions fairly warrants us in inferring only that Jesus at- 
tended regularly the synagogue, and perhaps a synagogue 
school at IsTazareth, and that he had a good memory. He 
presumably received the usual instruction of a Galilean 
youth of his day, but just what that was we do not know. 
That it included oral instruction in the Law is as certain 
as it is uncertain whether it included anything else. 
Galilee of the year 1 A. D. was as much gentile as Jew- 
ish, and the cormnon language of gentile Galilee was 
Greek; but what opportunities a youth like Jesus would 
have of acquiring a speaking knowledge of Greek is 
matter, not of evidence, but of unprofitable speculation. 
Even if Jesus spoke any langniage other than the vernac- 
ular of Galilee, that he was acquainted with any literature 
but that of his own people is most improbable. ISTo re- 

(*) John 7:15. Those who accept the story of Luke 4:16-30 as 
entirely historical cannot weU deny the ability of Jesus to read the 
Hebrew rolls of the synagogue. Many have pointed out that it was 
already in his time esteemed a religious duty to teach every Jewish 
child to read the Law. The boast of Josephus is well known: 
"If anyone asked one of his nation a question respecting the Law, he 
could answer it more readily than give his own name ; for he learns 
every part of it from the first dawn of intelligence, till it is graven 
into his very soul." C. Apion, ii 18. But this may mean memoriter 
instruction, not learning to read. 



JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 3 

ligious teacher ever owed less to instruction, we may 
safely conclude, or was more utterly thrown back upon 
himself for his religious ideas. Therefore, of all choice 
spirits of the past to whom we of the present look for 
light and leading, Jesus was most original. His schooling 
was of the slightest ; God and nature were his teachers ; 
and he became deeply learned in the lore of sky and 
field and jflower, not in the lore of books. 

In the case of any teacher who pursues the oral method 
exclusively, whose words are for an indefinite period 
handed on from lip to lip, and not published for a gen- 
eration or more after his death, it becomes a question as 
inevitable as it is serious. How nearly do these reports 
of his teaching correspond to his actual words ? How far 
were these misunderstood by those who heard, distorted 
by memory and travestied by tradition, before they were 
committed to writing ? How many recensions of the words 
of Jesus have we, and just what authority is to be at- 
tributed to each? What proportion of the sayings truly 
represent his own personality, and what should be cred- 
ited to the personalities of the various reporters? 

The doctrine of inspiration grew up in the second 
century largely to answer these questions. Its aim was 
to give unequivocal assurance to Christians that the Gos- 
pels were at once authentic and authoritative. This met 
the difficulty for the time, and for some centuries there 
was no questioning of the authenticity of the words of 
Jesus,' save on the part of a few bold spirits that from 
time to time questioned everything, and mostly got them- 
selves burned for their enterprise. But when, during 
the Renaissance, the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew 
w^as revived, and critical study of the original Scriptures 
began anew, the doubts and questionings reappeared. It 
was noted that not one of tlie Gospels givey tiie slightest 
hint that its author supposed himself to have received 



4: fu^'da:m:extals of Christianity 

any unusual^, not to say supernatural, assistance in the 
composition of his book; while the author of the third 
Gospel distinctly claims to have made use of the ordinary 
methods of research employed by other historians, in 
order to discover the facts and set them forth in fuller 
and better form than his predecessors. 

The great leaders of the Eefonnation were not without 
some comprehension of facts like these. Erasmus, Luther 
and Calvin, differing about almost everything else, were 
agreed in doubting the inspiration and authority of some 
books of the iSTew Testament canon. But this first ten- 
dency towards a free handling of the Xew Testament 
documents was quickly checked by the controversial ne- 
cessity, which all Protestants realized, of having an 
infallible Bible to cite in opposition to an infallible 
Church. The result was a tightening of the doctrine 
of inspiration, an assertion by Protestants generally of a 
more extreme view of the inerrancy of Scripture than 
had ever been held by the Roman Church. 

But it was perceived after a little that this was but a 
falsidic solution — that a doctrine of the verbal inspira- 
tion of the 'New Testament made the difficulties much 
worse than they were before the doctrine was promul- 
gated. There were patent and grave differences between 
the discourses of Jesus as reported in the fourth Gospel 
and those of the other three, the so-called Synoptic Gos- 
pels — differen(»es that might perhaps be successfully ac- 
counted for, but that in any case demanded explanation. 
Xot only so, but the same discourse was often variously 
reported in the Synoptics. True, these variations did 
not often affect the substance of a discourse, but they 
often did affect the form much; and sometimes form is 
important, not seldom it is vital. For example, take the 
two versions of the Beatitudes. Luke gives them as 
follows : 



JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 5 

Happy you poor ! 

For yours is the Kingdom of God. 
Happy you that hunger now ! 

For you will be satisfied. 
Happy you that weep now ! 

For you will laugh. 
Happy you when men hate you^ 

And expel you, and insult you, 

And reject your Name as an evil thing, 

On account of the Son of Man ! 
Eejoice at such time and leap for joy. 

For see ! great is your reward in Heaven. 
For in that same way their fathers used to treat the 

Prophets. (^) 
t: 

That is the address of the prophet of the proletariat 

to the toiling and hopeless masses^ holding out to them 
the prospect of an immediate coming of the Kingdom of 
God, in w^hich existing inequalities and injustices will 
be righted. It was such words as these that gave un- 
pardonable offence to the vested wrongs of his day, and 
led the corrupt interests to demand the death of Jesus. 
And in the Gospel bearing Matthew's name, published 
in the second generation after the crucifixion, these Beati- 
tudes assume this form: 

Happy the poor in spirit ! 

For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
Happy they that mourn ! 

For they will be comforted. 
Happy the meek ! 

For they will inherit the earth. 
I[appy they that hunger after righteousness ! 

For they will be satisfied. 
Happy the merciful ! 

For they will obtain mercy. 
Happy the sincere in heart ! 

For they will see God. 



(*) Luke 6:20-2'^ 



6 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Happy the peacemakers! 

For they will be called sons of God. 

Happy they that have been persecuted for righteousness^ 
sake, 
For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Happy are you when they reproach you and persecute you, 
And say all evil against you, for my sake ; 
Eejoice and be exceedingly glad, 
Because great is your reward in Heaven, 
For so persecuted they the Prophets that were before 
you.(^) 

The four Beatitudes of Luke have been expanded into 
nine (really but eight, for the ninth is but a repetition 
of the eighth) but this is not the most significant change: 
the proletarian element has been spiritualized away, and 
the promises for this v^orld have been given an otherworld- 
ly application. The two versions of the Beatitudes are 
therefore as different in substance as they are in form. 
Which did Jesus actually teach? That he taught both 
can be believed only by a mind utterly flaccid and un- 
critical, by those persons who have retained the naive 
habit of childhood, of receiving as true anything that 
may be told them. 

It will help us to decide this question, if we turn 
again to Luke and read the converse teaching there at- 
tributed to Jesus, the Woes that follow the Beatitudes: 

But woe to you rich ! 

For you 'have received your consolation. 
Woe to you who are satisfied now I 

For you will hunger. 
Woe to you that laugh now ! 

For you will mourn and weep. 
Woe to you when all men speak well of you ! 

For in that same way their fathers used to treat the false 
prophets. (^) 

(M Matt. 5:3-12. 
(') Luke 6:24-26. 



JPJSUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 7 

The entire suppression of this passage by Matthew 
constitutes a more serious discrepancy than his altera- 
tion of the Beatitudes. These ^^Woes'^ could by no in- 
genuity be softened down and spiritualized as were the 
Beatitudes, and so the composer of the first Gospel dealt 
with his problem in the obvious way, by omitting the 
inconvenient teachings. Critical study has established 
that this is true, rather than the alternative that Luke 
composed and added the ^^Woes,'' by making it evident 
that the authors of the first and third Gospels used the 
same collection of the sayings of Jesus as their chief 
authority for his discourses. Before the first century 
had closed, we thus see the process well begun of trim- 
ming down and smoothing over the words of Jesus, to 
make them more palatable to the new generation of 
Christians. There can be no reasonable doubt that we 
have in Luke's version, if not the exact words of Jesus, 
at least a much closer approximation to them than is 
given by Matthew. 

It is quite certain, therefore, that we cannot receive 
as the indubitable words of Jesus everything attributed 
to him in the Gospels. We have as yet got little further 
than recognition of this fact by a fraction of the Chris- 
tian world, the greater part still refusing to admit that 
this is fact. The critical study of the discourses of Jesus 
that will give measurably assured results is only well 
begun, and therefore such appreciation as is here at- 
tempted must be more or less tentative and experimental. 
Much of what has purported to be critical study, by 
German scholars especially, is invalidated by lack of 
spiritual insight, by false philosophical assumptions and 
by adoption of a pseudo-scientific method. 

Of these defects the first is gravest. A large part of 
the sayings of Jesus were received as authoritative by his 
original hearers, because of their resistless appeal to the 
religious consciousness; and that they still make the same 



b rUNDAMETVTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

appeal is the best proof we could have of their authenticity. 
The words are self -evidencing. ISTobody else could possibly 
have uttered them. There is not another man of that 
generation, or of the generation following, whom we have 
the slightest ground for investing with the peculiar spir- 
itual quality that these words disclose. To suppose them 
the invention of any disciple, or the gradual accretion of 
the religious thinking of many, is equally preposterous. 
Disciples of Jesus proved themselves capable of denaturing 
his teachings, but not of originating them. And in scores 
of cases we may be reasonably confident that we have the 
exact form of his words, for many of his most pregnant 
utterances were not so much easy to remember as impos- 
sible to forget. 

It is plain, however, that such considerations as these 
apply only to those sayings that evince superior ethical 
and spiritual insight. Discourses of the apocalyptic type, 
and sayings of an eccleatiastical sort, may easily have 
been, and probably were, the invention of others, fathered 
on Jesus by a later age. IsTot all the external corrobora- 
tion of texts and versions can make credible some of these 
alleged sayings. Of this character is part of the cele- 
brated dialogue between Jesus and his disciples, related 
in Matt. 16:13-19: 

Jesus. Who do people say that the Son of Man is ? 

Disciples. Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, 

others Jeremiah, or one of the Prophets. 
Jesiis. But who do you say that I am ? 

Peter. You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living 

God. 
Jesus. Happy are you Simon, son of Jonah ! 

For iiesh and blood have not revealed it to 

you, 
But my Father who is in Heaven. 
[And i tell you, You are Peter, 
x\nd on this Eock 1 will build my Church, 



JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 9 

And the gates of Hades will not prevail 

against it. 
I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of 

Heaven ; 
And whatever you prohibit in earth will be 

prohibited in Heaven, 
And whatever you permit on earth w^ll be 

permitted in Heaven.] 

The first part of this dialogue is probably authentic, but 
the words enclosed in brackets could be authenticated to us 
only by the most positive direct testimony. They are 
utterly foreign to the spirit of Jesus, as his teaching in 
general makes him known to us. As we shall see later, 
there is much wdt and humor in all the discourses, public 
and private, but nowhere does Jesus condescend to the 
feeble punning (^) that some later ecclesiastical writer here 
puts into his mouth. The ideas and method of this ^^say- 
ing" cannot be rationally supposed to have occurred to 
anybody during the first hundred years of Christian his- 
tory. Only after the tradition of Peter's Roman episco- 
pate and primacy in the Church came to be generally cir- 
culated and widely believed — ^^say about the time of Irena^- 
us — would such words have had any force or acceptance. 
Their interpolation into the first Gospel toward the end 
of the second century, or early in the third, is the most 
plausible explanation of their presence in all our earliest 
texts and versions. For there is no more question that 
the w^ords are canonical, than that they are not authentic. 



II 

Many expounders of the teaching of Jesus have at- 
tempted to show^ that he was philosopher, theologian, mor- 
alist, but he was none of these — he w^as poet. The greater 

C) *'Leave the dead to bury their own dead" (Matt. 8:22) i^ 
the nearest approach to a pun in any of the undoubted words of 
Jesus. 



10 I'UNDAMEMTAT.S OF CHRISTIANITY 

part of his instruction found expression in the rhythmic 
forms of Hebrew prophets and psalmists. This is so ap- 
parent, even in the Greek version in which alone his say- 
ings have come down to us, that it is a marvel how the 
fact could have escaped notice for centuries. Only that 
a supposed reverence for the words of Jesus prevented 
men from studying them as literature can account for 
such prolonged failure of perception. Among men of 
^^serious'' mind and ^^religious" temperament there used 
to be, and perhaps still lingers, a scarcely concealed dis- 
trust and contempt of all forms of artistry. To such, 
^^poet" is little more than synonym for '^^fool." Men are 
still living who can remember when reading of ^^Paradise 
Lost" was just tolerated among pious people, because the 
poem had a ^^sacred" theme. Even so, the ^^Pilgrim's 
Progress," as plain prose, was much more favored; while 
to read Wordsworth was to be looked at askance, and to 
read Byron or Shelley was to be anathema. People so 
constituted would have received almost with horror the 
suggestion that Jesus was a poet ; it would have seemed to 
them near kin to blasphemy. 

And yet, how can it be denied or doubted that such 
sayings as these have all the characteristics of Hebrew 
poetry ? 

Again, you have heard that it was said by the ancients, 

"Thou shalt not swear falsely, 

But shalt perform to the Lord thine oaths." 
But I say to you, 

Swear not at all. 
Xot by the Heaven, 

For it is God's throne ; 
^Tor by the earth, 

For it is the footstool of his feet; 
IS'or by Jerusalem, 

For it is the Great King-^s city : 
Xor shall you swear by your head, 

For vou cannot make one hair white or black. 



JESUS THE PEASAKT-POET OF GALILEE 11 

But let your word be Yes or No ; 

What is more than these is of the Evil One.(^) 

Or again^ what could be more nicely balanced, after the 
parallelism of the Hebrew poetry, than these triplets: 

Ask and it will be given you, 

Seek and you will find^, 

Knock and the door will open to you. 

For every one that asks, receives, 

And he that seeks, finds, 

And to him that knocks the door is opened. (-) 

The discourses of Jesus are not poetic in form merely ; 
his style is a poet's. It has the qualities of imagination, 
elegance, elevation, repose, power, that we demand in all 
poets and find only in the great. Equally at home with 
things high and low, with themes homely and themes sub- 
lime, his mind pours forth a rich variety of thought. And 
his diction as well repays study as his thought : it is always 
beautiful in its simplicity, wholly without ornature, often 
illumined by a delicate play of fancy. In the case of 
Jesus, speech is perfect in adaptation to occasion and cir- 
cumstance, and consequently rich in variety and charm. 
If any doubt what has been said, let him ask himself, 
Could any but a poet have spoken these words? 

Observe the lilies, how they grow; 

They toil not, they spin not, 
Yet not even Solomon in all his splendor 

Was robed like one of these. 
Now if God so clothes grass. 

Which to-day is in the field, 

And to-morrow is cast into the oven. 
How much more you, men of little trust !(^) 

Speaking once more of form, every attentive reader of 
the Gospels must have noted sayings of Jesus that fall 

n Matt. 5:33-37. 

(») Matt. 7:7, 8. 

(^) Matt. 6:28-30; of. Lnko 12:27, 28. 



12 FJXDA:srEXTALS or CHRISTIANITY 

into the couplets of the Proverbs^ sententious, crisp, pithy, 
argute. Instances are: 

He that j&nds his life will lose it, 

And he that loses his life for my sake will find it. (^) 

He that is not with me is against me, 

And he that does not gather with me, scatters. (-) 

Every one that exalts himself will be humbled, 
But he that humbles himself will be exalted. (^) 

So the last will be first, 
And the first, last.(^) 

The Sabbath was made for man, 
Xot man for the Sabbath. (^) 

What I tell YOU in the dark, speak in the light ; 

And what you hear in whispers, shout on housetops. (^) 

I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves, 
So become wise as serpents and guileless as doves. (') 

Because he is poet and speaks in the vocabulary of 
poetry — language ^^thrown out at an idea/' as Matthew 
Arnold calls it, not formal scientific definition — it re- 
quires imagination to understand and interpret the teach- 
ing of Jesus. There is nothing fixed and stereotyped 
about his words ; they are fluid, almost volatile ; ^'they are 
spirit.'' (^) This is why his interpreters have in so many 
cases made a sad mess of their work : they have persisted 
in treating his poetry as prose, in regarding his airy die- 



(M Matt. 16:25: 


Mk. 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17-33 


(2) Matt. 12:30. 




n Matt. 2.3:12. 




(*) Matt. 20:16: 


Mk. 10:31: Luke 13:30. 


(^) Mk. 2:27. 




(«) Matt. 10:27: 


Luke 12:3. 


(•) Matt. 10:16. 




(^) Jn. 6:6.3. 





JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 13 

tion as exact statement or accurate exposition. And so 
exegetes have made hay of his delicate flowers and fresh 
grass. They have treated his poetic mirrorings of truth 
as if he were a mathematician or a professor of ethics, 
giving us rigid formulae or precise statement of abstract 
principles. So to understand Jesus is to misunderstand 
him. So to interpret him is to read out of his words all 
life and vigor, and make of them jejune and spiritless 
things. 

Ill 

/^'Jesus was not only poet, but he was the people's poet. By 
birth, breeding and deepest instincts he was the mouth- 
piece of the world's workers. Everywhere we find him the 
Galilean peasant, artisan rather than farmer, none poorer 
or more obscure, none knowing better the life of those 
who toil patiently and hard for daily bread. Sympathy 
with the poor was the very stuff of life in one who spent 
all his days among them, shared their lot, gave his life to 
them and for them. (^) It is true that in his days of public 
ministration, Jesus was patronizingly invited to the houses 
of a few rich, since he was the ^^lion" of the day. But 
he was among the rich, not of them. Sometimes he seems 
to have been treated with scant courtesy by these conde- 
scending patrons of the higher circle, where he was tol- 
erated at all only because he was reputed to be a prophet. 
On one occasion he rather pointedly rebuked his enter- 
tainer for failing in attentions that any host was then 
expected to show a guest: 

(^) Jesus offers as one of the chief proofs of his Messianic work 
the fact that *'the poor have the Good News proclaimed to them" 
(Matt. 11:5; Luke 7:22). "It is a new thing that the poor, whom 
the Greek despised and the Roman trampled on, and whom the 
priest and the Levite left on one side, should be invited into the 
Kingdom of God." Plummer, Commentary on Luke, p. 203. 



14 rUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAIXITY 

When I came into your house^ 
Water for my feet you gave me not, 

But she has bathed my feet with her tears, 

And wiped them with her hair. 
A kiss you gave me not, 
But she, ever since I came in, has not left off tenderly 

kissing my feet. 
With oil you did not anoint my head, 

B.ut she with perfume has anointed my feet.(^) 

Such recognition of Jesus "by "society" doubtless did 
not at all surprise or flatter him, since it v^as a tradition 
of his race that "the word of Jehovah" might come to the 
lowliest. Revelations from God were no special privilege 
of the high and mighty among the Jews. Almost the re- 
verse had ever been true. Amos and Micah were peasants, 
and probably Isaiah also ; Samuel was the son of peasants ; 
Moses was a slave by birth, and David was a tender of 
sheep in youth. It was quite in harmony with Jewish 
ideas and Jewish history that "the carpenter's son" of 
ISTazareth should be prophet of God and teacher of his 
people. The chief reason why his peasant birth and artisan 
training should be emphasized is that they so deeply 
colored every sentence that fell from the lips of Jesus. 
'No plainer marks of heredity and environment are found 
in the words of any religious teacher. He was not ashamed 
to be known as a man of the common people. Racy of .the 
soil, instinct with the spirit and life of the Syrian folk, 
are all his sayings. 

Very striking is the interest shown by Jesus in the 
world about him. His love of nature was inborn and 
deep, as we might expect of a child of the fields and the 
open air. His teaching is redolent of earth and sky. He 
does not seek painfully for illustrations in nature, they 
spring spontaneously to his lips. The peasant-poet has an 
infallible eye for the picturesque and dramatic, and equally 

C) Luke 7:44-46. 



JESUS THE PEASA]^T-POET OF GALILEE 15 

for the homely eA^ent that will send a ray of light into the 
heart of some great truth or so illumine a phase of the 
Kingdom that the dullest will be able to visualize it. With 
sound instinct he avoids the besetting sin of so many 
preachers and teachers — ^he never tells a story for its own 
sake or to ornament his discourse ; his illustrations really 
illustrate. 

And so, not a feature of the Palestinian landscape, not a 
scene in the Palestinian life, fails to impress him and 
sooner or later to suggest some spiritual application : moun- 
tain and plain, lake and river ; the trees, sycamine and fig, 
good and bad, green and dry; the mustard plant, growing 
to be almost a tree ; the fields at springtime, as the farmer 
plows and scatters seed, and anon white for harvest; the 
grass flourishing to-day and to-morrow fuel for the baker ; 
the lily in her glory and the humbler herb of the house- 
garden; the roads wandering whitely through the land, 
some bordered by hedges, picturesque and broad and trav- 
eled by many, others narrow and steep, with thorns and 
brambles on either hand, trodden by few — even the flat 
stones by the wayside do not succeed in hiding from him ! 

For the larger phenomena of nature Jesus has a vision 
equally keen and comprehensive. He lays tribute on all: 
the splendor of the Oriental sun and the glory of the un- 
matched Syrian heavens by night; light and darkness, 
summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, growth of plant 
and fruitage of tree and vine ; the varying qualities of soils 
and the vexation of weeds among the farmer's crops ; signs 
of the weather, wind, rain, lightning; natural disasters, 
flood, drought, earthquake, famine and pestilence. All 
nature was to him an open book, of which he was a most 
attentive reader. 

Many of the sayings that make good these general re- 
marks will be cited hereafter for other purposes, so only 
a few examples can be given here, but the memory of every 
Gospel student will supply nnmberless others. ^Inrk li;is 



16 rUXDAIMEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

preserved a unique parable that grew out of this observa- 
tion of nature's ways : 

So is the Kingdom of God. as if a man should cast seed 
on the ground^ 
And should sleep and rise night and day^ 
And the seed should spring up and grow^ he knows 
not how. 
The ground bears fruit of itself^ 

First the blade, then the ear^ then the ripe grain in 
the ear. 
But when the grain is ripe^ he sends forth the sickle 
at once, 
Because the harvest is come.(^) 

One of the most pungent reproaches of the Pharisees 
was inspired by ordinary weather maxims of his day, 
which are those of our day as well, because they are 
founded on universal experience : 

In the evening you say, "Fair weather V^ 

For the sky is red. 
And in the morning, "Stormy to-day!'^ 

For the sky is red and threatening. 
You know how to judge the sky^s appearance, 

But the signs of the times you cannot judge. (^) 

Other representative instances are these : 
As the lightning-flash shines from sky to sky, 
So will be the [coming of the] Son of Man.(^) 

For he makes his sun to rise on evil and good. 
And sends rain on just and unjust. (^) 

From the fig tree learn its parable : 
AVhen its branches become soft and burst into leaf 
You know that summer is near ; 



(*) Mark 4:26-29. 

(^) Matt. 16: 2, 3. 

(3) Luke 17:24: Matt, 24:27. 

(*) Matt. 5:45. 



JESUS THE PEASAjSTT-POET OF GALILEE 17 

So^ when you see all this, 
KnoAv that He is near — at your doors !(^) 

Xo man having put his hand to the plow and looking 

back, 
Is fit for the Kingdom of God.(-) 

Enter in by the narrow gate, 
Because wide is the gate and broad the road that leads 
to destruction, 
And many are they that enter in by it; 
Because narrow is the gate and contracted the road that 
leads to life. 
And few are they that find it !(^) 

Listen : the sower went forth to sow, 
And it chanced that in his sowing some seed fell along- 
side the road, 

And the birds came and ate it up. . . . 
And other seed fell among the thorns 

And the thorns sprang up and choked it 

And it bore no fruit. (*) 

The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. 

Which a man took and sowed in his field — 
Which indeed is the smallest of all seeds. 

But when it has grown it is larger than the herbs, and 
becomes a tree, 
So that the birds of the air come and roost in its 
branches. (^) 

Why, what man is there of you, who, if his son ask a 
loaf, will give him a stone ? 
Or, if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent ? 



(^) Mark 13:28, 29. 
(^) Luke 9:62. 
(") Matt. 7:13, 14. 
(*) Matt. 13:4, 7. 
(-) Matt. 13:31, 32. 



18 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

If 3'ou then, wicked as you are^, know how to give good 

gifts to your children, 
How much more Avill your Father who is in Heaven give 

good gifts to those that ask him I(^) 

But let us not fail to not^ that as Jesus looked upon 
Mature, he did not see merely a collection of beautiful ob- 
ject s, or a succession of interesting events, or a thesaurus 
of illustrations, but almost a living Thing, radiant with 
the glory of an immanent God. He saw everywhere his 
Father's hand ; in the smallest things he read proofs of his 
Father's love : 

Observe the ravens, that they neither sow nor reap. 

Xo storehouse nor granary have they, 

And God feeds them. 
How much more are you worth than birclsl(-) 

Two sparrows are sold for a farthing, are they not ? 
And not one of them falls to the ground without vour 
Father. (^) 

Rarely does Jesus go outside of his personal experience 
for an illustration. In one case he is thought by some to 
have done so; but, though we have no account of such a 
thing, it is by no means impossible that at some time of 
his life he had stood on the shore of the Mediterranean in 
a storm: 

There will be signs in sun and moon and stars, 

And upon the earth distress of nations. 

In perplexity for the roaring of the sea and its billows. (*) 

Equally broad and precise was Jesus in his observation 
of animate nature. The fauna of Palestine, great and 
small, wild and domestic, are used by him with much ef- 
fectiveness in his teaching. He speaks most frequently 

n Matt. 7:9-11. 

(^) Luke 12:24. 

(^) Matt. 10:29; Luke 12:6, 7. 

C) Luke 21:25. 



JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 10 

of the domesticated animals: the ox, the ass, the sheep, 
the fatted calf , the goat, the swine, the cock, and even of 
those snarling curs that infest Oriental towns, where they 
serve as scavengers, not as companions, and are called dogs 
by Western visitors, merely because they cannot be called 
anything else. Song-birds are rare in Syria, but the spar- 
row and the raven are plentiful and are often mentioned : 

The foxes have dens, 
And the birds have roosts, 
But the Son of Man has not where to lay his head.(^) 

Where the carcass is, 

There the vultures will be gathered. (^) 

Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! that kills the prophets 
And stones those that have been sent to you, 

How often would I have gathered your children, 

As a hen gathers her brood under her wings, 
And you were not willing !(^) 

IV 

^^11 human interests were the interests of Jesus; noth- 
ing pertaining to man was foreign to him. One of the most 
illuminating incidents in his career was when he sat by the 
wellside one day, adust, athirst, aweary, and, forgetting 
self utterly, taught a poor Samaritan woman to whom the 
ordinary Jew would have disdained even to speak. To 
her he uttered some of the deepest truths that ever fell 
from his lips, concerning the Water of Life and the s])ir- 
itual nature of worship. It followed that there are no 
"sacred places," but every place is sacred where the spirit i 
of man rises above the restraints of time and place and ' 
circumstance into fellowship with the Divine Spirit. (*) 

(M Matt. 8:20; Luke 9:58. 

{') Matt. 24:28; Luke 17:37. 

(3) Matt. 23:37. 

(*) John 4:6-24. 



20 FUIN^DAMEjNJ^TALS of CHRISTIANITY 

Neither the teaching nor the incident can have been in- 
v^ented by the author of the fourth Gospel, or by anybody 
else; each corresponds too closely to the nature of Jesus 
to admit of a doubt as to its substantial accuracy. 
<^ While all classes of men appealed to Jesus, the poor 
from whom he sprang were always closest to his heart 
He was not one of those who, so soon as they attain some 
small measure of fame and social vogue, promptly and 
completely forget former associates and associations. He 
speaks much more often and more tenderly of the poor, 
the maimed, the halt, the blind, the sick, the beggars, than 
of the rich. Perhaps the highest words of praise that he 
even uttered were about a certain unnamed, poor widow, 
who out of her great love put into the Lord's treasury all 
that she had;(^) and next to hers, he praised the act of 
another woman who sacrificed in his honor her dearest, 
her costliest treasure, an alabaster vase of nard.(^) 

It was the common complaint against Jesus by his ene- 
mies that he made companions and friends of tax-gatherers 
and sinners, as if a modern evangelist should single out 
"bootleggers'^ and women of the street for his best min- 
istrations. Fancy the Billy Sundays doing that! Yet 
Jesus did not shun the rich, as we have seen; he dined 
with them on occasion ; even so he did not permit cour- 
tesies to seal his lips, but spoke his message to them as 
others, with utter plainness, albeit with kindness. He 
now and then in his discourses refers to rich men, nobles, 
kings, to give point to a precept ; and he cites their ways 
in parable or sermon to make plain some spiritual truth. 
But it is the ordinary peasant folk whom he knows best, of 
whose life he is an intimate part, whom he always has in 
mind whatever the subject of his discourse. They are his 
"little ones," whom it is worse than death to "offend," or 
cause to stumble. 



{') Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4. 
(-) Matt. 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9 



JESUS THE PEASAXT-POET OF GALILEE 21 

And whoso puts a snare in the way of these little ones 

that trust in me^ 
Better were it for him to have a great millstone hung 

around his neck 
And be thrown into the sea.(^) 

As we listen to Jesus we catch pictures of the villages 
of Galilee, with their flat-topped houses (~) and adobe 
walls, (") tlirough which robbers could so easily dig. We 
see their streets and lanes, thronged by the busy people. (^) 
We see the well by the house, into which ox or ass might 
accidentally fall, in which case he is to be drawn out even 
on the holy Sabbath. (^) We see the barns(^) of the richer 
and the dunghills(') beside them, and in the adjoining 
yard the plow, the threshing-floor and the great stone for 
threshing and grinding gTain, turned by ox or ass. With- 
in the house we see the lamp and its stand, the beds and 
couches, the table, cup and platter, and the key to the 
great door or gate.(''). The marvel is, however, not that 
Jesus mentions so many of these things, but that he makes 
every one of them illustrate some vital spiritual truth. 
The lamp he uses many times and it affords one of the 
best instances of his method: 

The body^s lamp is the eye : 
So, if your eye is clear-sighted. 

Your whole body will be light; 
But if your eye is diseased, 

Your whole body will be dark. 
If then the light in you is darkness^ 

How great the darkness !(^) 

(M Mark 9:42: Matt. 18 :G; Luke 17:2. 
(-) Mark 2:4: 13-15. 
{^) Matt. 6:19. 
(*) Luke 14:21. 
(^) Luke 14:5> 
{«) Matt. 6:26; Luke 12:18. 
C) Luke 14:35. 

(*) Matt. 5:15; Mark 4:21: Luke 16:20; Matt. 23:25, 26; Matt. 
16:19. 

(») Matt. 6:22, 23. 



22 rtT]s-DAMEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

And again: 

I am the Light of the world I 
He that follows me will not walk in the dark, 
But will have the light of life.(^) 

Other eflfective illustrations from the daily aflFairs of the 
household are: 

I am the Bread of life. 
He that comes to me will by no means hunger, 
And he that puts his trust in me will never thirst. (-) 

Xow salt is good, 
But if the salt becomes tasteless, 

With what will you season it ? 
It is not fit for soil or dunghill — 

Men throw it away. 
He that has ears to hear, let him hear I (^) 

We are not surprised to find that his o^vn trade fur- 
nishes Jesus with some of his most impressive illustra- 
tions. The ox-yokes, clumsy and heaw as they seem to 
us of the West, he likens to his way of salvation, which 
he commends as less burdensome than the requirements of 
the Pharisees: 

C'ome to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, 

And I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you and learn of me. 

For I am meek and lowly in heart, 
And you will find rest for your souls. 
For my yoke is easy. 
And my burden light. (^) 

The importance of a good foundation for a house sug- 
gests the eloquent peroration of the Sermon on the Mount : 

(M John 8:12. 

(M John 6:35. 

(«) Luke 14:34, 35: Matt. 5:13: Mark f):50. 

{*) Matt. 11:28-30. 



JESUS THE PEASA:XT-P0ET of GALILEE 23 

So, then, everyone that hears these words and does them, 
AVill be likened to a prudent man, who built his house 
on the rock. 

And the rain came down, 

And the floods rose. 

And the winds blew, 
And beat upon that house, and it did not fall. 

For it was founded on the rock ! 

And everyone that hears these words of mine and does 

them not. 
Will be likened to a silly man, who built his house on 

the sand. 
And the rain came down. 
And the floods rose. 
And the ^^inds blew. 
And smote upon that house, and it fell. 
And great was its fall!(^) 

Hardly less effective, though less poetic, is the reference 
to the man who began to build wdth so little consideration 
of the cost of the enterprise and the extent of his ow^n re- 
sources, that he w^as unable to finish and so became the 
mark for the jeers of all the town. (') Hardly a town in 
Galilee, or anywhere else, would fail to furnish forth an 
apposite case. 

The social relations of the time supply Jesus with no 
small part of his material: king and subjects, neighbor 
and friend, host and guest, owner and tenant, employer 
and worker, borrower and lender, judge and suitor, sheriff 
and prisoner, robbers and their victim, and, oftenest of 
all, master and slave. How often these social incidents 
are made the basis of parable or wise saying could hardly 
be effectively set forth without quoting the larger part of 
the words of Jesus. Any reader of the Gospels can call 
on his memory for instances or easily find them for him- 

n Matt. 7:24-27. 
(') Luke 14:27-30. 



24 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

self. He can hardly read anywhere, indeed, without find- 
ing them. But it may perhaps be allowable to cite a few 
instances of the use made of the relation of master and 
slave : 

No house -servant can be a slave to two masters, 
For either he will hate the one and love the other, 
Or he will cling to one and scorn the other. 

You cannot be slave to God and Mammon. (^) 

Every one that lives in sin is sin^s slave. 

Now the slave does not always remain in the house, 

But the son remains always; 
So, if the Son sets you free. 

You will be freemen indeed. (^) 

Keep your loins girt, 

And your lamps lit. 
And be like men waiting for their master, 
Fntil he shall return from a wedding-feast. 
That, Avhen he comes^ they may admit him at once. 
Happy those slaves whom the master finds awake when 
he comes !(^) 

Occupations of men in the fields about Nazareth are 
likewise often drawn upon for illustrative material : work- 
ing in the vineyards, plowing and sowing and reaping, 
winnowing the wheat, watering the cattle, the fisherman 
casting his nets. The hills round about were grazed by 
many sheep, and caring for them was an important part 
of life in Nazareth. The shepherd's work suggested sev- 
eral parables, and is the basis for an elaborate allescory in 
the fourth Gospel : 

My sheep hear my voice, 

x4nd I know them and they follow me; 



r) Luke 16:13. 
(-) John 8:34-30. 
(^) Luke 12:35, 36. 



JESUS THE PEASANT-POET OF GALILEE 25 

And I give them eternal life, 

And they will not 'be lost — no, never ! 

And no one will snatch them out of my hand.(^) 

I am the Good Shepherd : 

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 
He that is a hired man and not the shepherd, 

Who does not own the sheep, 
Sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away 

(And the wolf makes them his prey and scatters them) 
Because he is a hired man and cares nothing for the 
sheep. (^) 

Not only agriculture but "business'' furnishes its fair 
share of illustrative instances: the merchantman seeking 
goodly pearls, (^) bankers and interest, (*), as well as the 
coins in which all transactions took place — "talent/' 
"pound" (mina), "penny" or "shilling" (denary), "far- 
thing" or "mite" (lepta).^) 

Nothing seems too insignificant to merit the attention 
of Jesus, or too homely or too familiar to serve his pur- 
pose. He shows us the housewife mending the family 
clothes, or spinning flax or wool to make new garments; 
sweeping the house with lighted lamp to find her lost 
coin ; or putting yeast in her meal to make bread, as well 
as the small, flat loaves into which she bakes it, the oven 
in which it is baked and the rude stone hand-mill in which 
she grinds her meal. He shows us the store-room or 
"treasury" out of which the householder brings things new 
and old ; and the "treasure" or hoard of every family in the 
East, generally a sum of money buried in the dirt floor or 
under the pavement : 

{') John 10:27, 28. 

n John 10:11-13. 

(M Matt. 13:45, 46. 

(*) Luke 19:13. 

(') Matt, 18:24; Luke 19:13; Mark 12:42, etc. 



26 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Treasure not for yourselves treasures on earth. 
Where moth and rust destroy. 
And where thieves dig through and steal; 
But treasure for yourselves treasures in Heaven, 
Where neither moth nor rust destroys, 
And vi^here thieves do not dig through and steal. 
For where your treasure is, 
There will be your heart also.(^) 

Clothings that for every day and that for special occasions, 
often figures in the discourses of Jesus ; the cloak and 
tunic, (^) girdle, sandals, staff, purse, scrip (^) (or, as we 
say, ^^grip"), and for more formal occasions the robe, 
^^long robes,'' 'Svedding garment." (*). In short, from the 
parables and sayings of Jesus a whole volume on Jewish 
archaeology might easily be compiled. 

Popular customs not infrequently furnish an apt simile 
or other illustration, especially the religious: the habits 
of prayer, the interior of the synagogTie and its form of 
service. The chief events of life — ^birth, marriage, death — 
which have not only an individual but a social signifi- 
cance, are very prominent in the teachings. The marriage- 
feast, in particular, everywhere in the East one of the 
chief social functions, is a favorite subject, the main theme 
of several parables and an object of frequent allusion. 
The music and dancing by hired entertainers that are 
usual accompaniments of Oriental social occasions, are by 
no means forgotten. (^) Even the street games of the vil- 
lage urchins are levied upon for illustration. (^) 

On everything included in the broad term ^^politics," 
public events and policies, Jesus is significantly silent. 
Things military, war and weapons, so prominent in ancient 
times and especially under Roman rule, he mentions spar- 

FTMatt. 6:19-21. 

{') Matt. 5:40. 

(^) Matt. 10:10. 

(*) Luke 15:22; Matt. 22:11. 

(M Luke 15:25. 

C") Matt. 11:16-19; Luke 7:31-34. 



JESTJS THE PEASAXT-POET OF GALILEE 27 

ingly, and more because they are things generally familiar 
to his hearers than because they filled any large place in 
his own thinking. 

^^Ot what king sets out to encounter another king in 
battle, without first sitting down and considering whether 
he is able to meet with ten thousand the one advancing 
against him with twenty thousand. And if not, while 
the other is still a long way off, he sends envoys and asks 
terms of peace. '^(^) 

If we did not positively know that Jesus was country- 
bred, we could with absolute certainty infer it from his 
words ; for everywhere it is the processes of nature and the 
life of country-folk that suggest to him spiritual analogies, 
not the life of camp or city. 

FT Luke 14:31, 32. 



CHAPTER II 
JESUS THE PEOPHET XND TEACHER 



Our Gospels warrant us in concluding that his prophetic 
function bulked largest in the consciousness of Jesus. His 
mission, as he conceived it, was to make God known to 
men, that he might bring men back to God — ^made es- 
pecially clear in the Fourth Gospel, but by no means ob- 
scure in the others. But to realize this purpose, to make 
God kaown effectively, Jesus must be teacher, no less than 
prophet. Among the greatest teachers he was, if we con- 
sider his method merely ; while he was the great Teacher 
of the ages, if we consider also his message. In this chap- 
ter we are to consider the method chiefly, while the two 
chapters to follow will be concerned mainly with the mes- 
sage. It may not prove possible in all cases to preserve 
this distinction with exactitude, but as a general descrip- 
tion it should pass muster. 

To his own generation, the chief pedagogic trait of Jesus 
seemed to be his tone of authority. Frequent in the Gos- 
pels are passages like this: ^^The multitudes were aston- 
ished at his teaching, for he taught as one having author- 
ity, and not as their scribes." (^) How did their scribes 
teach ? Just as a modem preacher teaches : they took a 
text from the Law and then expoimded and enforced it. 
They sheltered themselves behind the authority of Moses 
and the Prophets : they claimed no authority of their own. 

FTMatt. 7:28, 29; 13:54: 22:33; Mark 11:18; Luke 4:32; 
John 7:46. 

28 



JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 29 

But Jesus differed sharply from them in that he claimed 
independent^ essential authority: 

You have heard that it was said, 

^^Eye for eye, 

And tooth for tooth/^ 
But I say to you, 

Eesist not the evil man. 

You have heard that it was said, 

^^Thou shalt love thy neighbor 

And thou "shalt hate thine enemy.'^ 
But I say to you. 

Love your enemies. 

And pray for those that persecute you. (^) 

Many of the words of Jesus are redeemed from insuf- 
ferable conceit, from wicked arrogance and pretension, 
only if we concede to him what he claimed, imique author- 
ity as Teacher. The Pharisees continually revolted against 
this claim ; his own disciples often protested and grumbled 
among themselves ;(^) but he went on calmly announcing 
his great truths, mostly to dull ears and unbelieving hearts. 
He never bated one jot of his claims; in no case did he 
soften his teachings to make them more palatable. To the 
end, his tone was that of one born to command speaking to 
those born to obey. ISTot that he was imperious, overbear- 
ing, haughty — every reader of the Gospels knows that he 
was the reverse of this, but every reader also knows that 
he was authoritative. 

Why do not teachings of such character jar our sensi- 
bilities ? Why did they not expose Jesus when he spoke 
to the scoffs and jeers of the multitude? The record 
shows that men might reject his teaching, they might hate 
him with deadly hatred, they might conspire to put him 
to death ; the one thing they might not do was to laugh at 

(') Matt. 5:38, 39, 43, 44. 
(') e.g. John 6:60, 66. 



. 30 rU^N-DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

him. True or false^ he spoke with an authority that 
separates his teaching from all other teaching. 
r The secret of this authority of Jesus as Teacher can of 
course be sought in nothing else than in his character. 
When a Marcus Aurelius speaks, the imperial purple may 
dazzle men and make them see in his commonplaces pro- 
found wisdom; but there was no rank, no adventitious cir- 
cumstance, to give undeserved weight to what Jesus said. 
To all appearances he was nothing but an ordinary peasant 
of Galilee. But he was more: so much more that men 
hung on his words and treasured them in memory. What 
he was determined what he spoke and feathered the arrows 
of truth that he sent always into the gold. Because Jesus 
surpassed all men in the depth and reality of his life vritli 
God, he w^as God's prophet as none other. Because he and 
the Father were one, he speaks with the calm, deep certi- 
tude of one who knows spiritual things, not guesses them. 
The method of Jesus was the intuitional. He relied on 

^ the religious intuitions, his own first of all, but next on 
those of his hearers. The method of mo^ teachers is the 
logical ; they aim to prove religious truth by reasoning. 
But all reasoning goes back ultimately to a few principles 
that are intuitively perceived and are themselves incapable 
of proof. They are deliverances of consciousness, which 
we must take on faith solely. 'No amount of argument or 
proof can make these fundamentals more credible to us 
than they are in themselves. If a man is not convinced, 
on a mere statement of the proposition, that things equal 
to the same thing are equal to each other, or that two and 
two make four, or that right is right and wrong is wrong, 
then no testimony, no syllogisms, can ever clear the matter 
up for him. So Jesus ignored the logical process and ap- 
pealed straight to the intuitions. ' Jesus never argued. 

f Jesus never proved. Open the Gospels where you will, 
and you shall find him simply announcing truth, leaving 
those who have ears to hear, to hear. 



JESUS THE PROPHET AXD TEACHER 61 

It is therefore to wisdom and experience, the intuitive ' 
element in knowledge, that Jesus appeals for confirmation 
of teaching, when he cites any corroborative authority, not 
to scholarship and criticism, knowledge painfully acquired 
by study. Yet he could on occasion worst the scribes in 
tlieir own rabbinic dialetic. A good example is his retort 
after they had tried to trip him by asking subtle questions 
of legalism: 

How do the scribes sav that the Messiah is David^s Son ? 
David himself said, in the Holy Spirit, 

JpJiovah said to my Lord, 

''Sit on wy right hand. 

Till I put thine enemies underneath thy feet." 
DavJd himself calls him "^Tord^^; and whence is he his 

Son?(i) 

The question was unanswerable, so long as they refused 
to accept Jesus as the Messiah, and it reduced his critics 
to silence. A similar case was his reply to Sadducees who 
quibbled about the resurrection, and propounded to him 
the problem of the w^oman who had been married succes- 
sively to seven brothers, and as climax demanding, '^In 
the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven V^ 
Jesus in reply accused them of misinterpretation of their 
own standard of authority, the Books of Moses, and used 
against them their own methods of exegesis ; quoting the 
words of God to Moses at the burning bush, ^^I am the 
God 'of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of 
Jacob,'' from wdiich he drew the inference, which they 
were unable to dispute, ^^He is not the God of dead men,'- 
but of living. You greatly err."(^) 

The much maligned Friends have come nearer than any 
other modern Christians to understanding the spirit of 
Jesus and imitating his method. Unfortunately for the 

(^) Matt. 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44. 
(') Matt. 22:23-32; Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-40. 



32 rUNDAME]!^TALS OF CIIRISTIAlSTITy 

reception of their truth, they mingled with it much foolish 
exegesis of Scripture, and taught with equal emphasis 
error with truth, so that the world has rejected both. But 
George Fox was quite in line with his Master in urging 
that the religion of the letter, of the printed book, of rites 
and ceremonies, is by comparison nothing. But the life of 
the spirit is difficult; to profess a complicated creed, to 
practice a florid cult, is easy. Yet Jesus did his best to 
make the spiritual life the simple life. His teaching, 
though profound as ocean, is always sane, convincing. Our 
inmost souls respond to his word ; deep calls to deep. For 
to Jesus truth was not something written in books, or 
.something handed down on the lips of wise men of old; 
it was something living, throbbing with reality, some- 
I thing autoptic, indisputable, indestructible. But every 
iman must see it for himself, or it cannot be truth for him. 
The Master's teaching was described by Peter as ^Vords 
of eternal life,'' spiritual truth that must be received by 
every disciple on its own self -evidencing power, and conse- 
quently meaningless to any man until by so receiving it 
he makes it his own. Then it is his inalienable possession 
forever. 

And so, only on a single occasion, and then because the 
occasion itself required it, did Jesus ever formally ex- 
pound the Scriptures of his people, or cite them as his 
authority. Often he cited them as the authority of his 
hearers, as an argumentum ad hominem, to prove to them 
that, from their own point of view, their criticisms and 
objections were groundless. But he never claimed them 
as the source of his teachings, or as giving his words 
higher value. In his treatment of tradition and Scripture, 
he gave his followers a lesson for all time — a lesson little 
to the profit of the greater number in all the centuries, 
because they have refused to heed. Jesus dealt with the 
substance of truth, not the form, with eternal realities 
rather than with transitory and imperfect attempts to 



JESUS THE PROPHET AXD TEACHEE 33 

express eternal verities. Which is the same as saying that 
he ignored the Jewish theology of his day. 

We do not heed this lesson^ because theology seems so 
important that we have come to identify theology with 
truth. Our minds are so anaesthetized by doctrines said 
to be drawn from inspired sources that our moral intui- 
tions do not function when we read the words of Jesus. 
To the man who believes that anything must be accepted 
as true, just because it may be plausibly deduced from 
something that soniebody (often an unknown person) 
wrote in a book two thousand years ago, one appeals in 
vain to trust his intuitions or to exercise his reason. His 
intuitions are atrophied by disuse ; his reason has abdicated 
and turned his soul over to authority. He cannot perceive 
truth, he dare not reason about truth — he might be damned 
if he did! 

There are several possible (and actual) theories about 
divine revelation. There is the orthodox Protestant the- 
ory: that God spoke often two or three thousand years 
ago, mostly to a few peasant folk, and then shut himself 
up in his Heaven and has ever since refused to speak to 
anybody. And then there is the orthodox Catholic theory : 
that God has remained shut up in his Heaven most of the 
time and for most people, but has now and then opened a 
window and spoken to a saint here and a saint there. If 
one had to choose between the Protestant theory and the 
Catholic, one would choose the latter, as the one that honors 
God most and insults common sense least. But fortu- 
nately there is another theory: that God never shut him- 
self up in his Heaven, but has always remained in his 
world and among the men he has made, too often imrec- 
ognized by those who boasted of being on most familiar 
terms with him, but ready ever to speak to any who cared 
enough about his word to listen. As that is the most 
sensible theory, the most God-honoring theory, the only 
theory that accords with the facts of religious experience, 



34 rUNDAMElS^TALS OF CHRISTIAXITY 

naturally both Protestants and Catholics with one voice 
shout at anybody who mentions it^ ^ ^Heresy ! Heresy ! Put 
him out!^' 

Inspiration meant among the Hebrews that all their 
great men and women — kings, warriors, lawgivers, no less 
than poets and prophets — were believed to receive com- 
munications and direction from Jehovah. Among early 
Christians inspiration meant that the Spirit of God was 
given to all believers as guide and teacher, while he be- 
stowed special gifts on some, who in the aggregate were 
many. Only at a relatively late period did the idea 
emerge that inspiration was restricted to the small group 
who produced the surviving literature, whether Hebrew 
or Greek ; or that this inspiration was of a special quality, 
unshared by others ; or that it entirely ceased at a given 
time. These notions of inspiration have nothing to com- 
mend them to this generation but their supposed antiquity, 
and on examination that turns out to be a sham. The 
commonly prevailing concept of ^^inspiration" was orig- 
inally invented by the Fathers of the early Catholic 
Church, as a weapon against the numerous heretics of the 
first three centuries. An infallible Bible furnished an 
inexhaustible arsenal of texts against those who defied the 
authority of the Church. But heretics could cite texts, 
too, and the Church soon found herself so embarrassed by 
her ovm doctrine of inspiration that it was suffered quietly 
to slip into the backgTound, while emphasis was laid more 
and more on the authority of the organization itself and 
of the Fathers who buttressed it. 

This demand for infallibility seems instinctive; at any 
rate it is universal. TVTiat a pity it cannot be satisfied! 
There is authority in religion, but not infallible authority 
— it is the authority of truth alone. Every other authority 
on which man has leaned for infallible guidance has 
showed itself to be no better than a broken reed. Men 
have found by bitter experience that the Pope is not in- 
fallible, that the Church is not infallible, that the Bible 



JESUS THE PEOPHET AND TEACHER 35 

is not infallible, that the human reason is not infallible, 
that the Christian consciousness is not infallible. Falli- 
bility, we must conclude, is an inescapable limitation of 
humanity, inseparable from the possession of finite pow- 
ers. Even divine inspiration cannot infuse infallibility 
into a finite mind and spirit ; or, if that be open to debate 
as an abstract proposition, it is demonstrable fact that 
inspiration has never yet produced infallibility in man. 
^Tor now we know in part" must forever continue to be | 
our confession. Absolute truth is known to God alone; 
to us the search for truth, with, we may hope, an approxi- 
mation to the goal that increases from age to age. 

When he, the Spirit of Truth, is come 
He will guide you into all the truth — (^) 

guide you, gradually, ultimately, not reveal to you truth 
in its fulness all at once and once for all. The Christian 
world would be delivered from intolerable bondage if it 
could, in some happy hour, learn that its cherished ^^doc- 
trines" are not absolute and final truths, but guesses at 
truth, w^orking hypotheses regarding the Kingdom of God, 
from their very nature subject to constant modification 
and revision in the light of advancing knowledge and en- 
larged experience. 

II 

In form, the teaching of Jesus was no less remarkable 
than in substance, though possibly less unique. All Ori- 
ental teachers deal much in metaphor, the literary ex- 
pression of poetry rather than of prose. Jesus abounds in 
metaphor. He describes his disciples after this fashion: 
Peter is ^^a Eock," James and John are ^^Sons of Thun- 
der," (^) and all are ^^fishers of men," ^^sheep in the midst 
of wolves," ^aittle children,'^ ^^the salt of the earth," ''ih^ 



(*) John 16:13. 

(-) But perhaps this name was givon by their felh^w-disciples, 
not by Jesus. 



3t) FUJNTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

light of the world/^ and some are ^^eunuchs." To be his 
disciple is to ^^take my yoke upon yon/' or ^'^take np the 
cross and follow me/' or ^^drink the cup that I am about 
to drink/' The Pharisees are a ^^generation of vipers/' 
^Svhited sepnlchers/' ^^actors wearing masks" (the exact 
sense of ^^hypocrites''), "wolves in sheep's clothing/' and 
their teaching is "yeast." The relation between character 
and conduct is not defined with careful precision of words, 
as a Western teacher would attempt, but expressed in a 
double metaphor : 

Either make the tree good and its fruit good, 
Or else make the tree rotten and its fruit rotten. (^) 

Or, again, this time with a touch of scorn : 

Do men gather grapes from thorns, 
Or figs from thistles ?(^) 

Truth and error are many times expressed in terms of 
light and darkness, while both death and life are symbol- 
ized in the growth of a kernel of wheat. Himself, his 
character and mission, are most frequently set forth in 
metaphor — he is the Light of the World, the Bread of 
Life, the Water of Life. Once his metaphor was wittily 
turned against him, when he seemed to reject the plea of 
the Syro-Phenecian mother, with the word, "It is not fit- 
ting to take the children's loaf and throw it to the dogs." 
In a flash she replied, "True, sir, but even the dogs eat of 
the crumbs that fall from their master's table." Deeply 
moved and pleased, Jesus responded, "Madam, great is 
your trust! Be it done to you as you desire." (^) 

Sometimes the metaphors were so extraordinary that 
they seemed to his hearers extravagant or meaningless. 
Nicodemus could not comprehend the saying: 

rTMatt. 12:33. 

(2) Matt. 7:16. 

(') Matt 15:22-28; Mark 7:25-29. 



JESUS THE PKOPHET Aj^TD TEACHER 37 

Except one be iborn from a'bove 

He cannot see the Kingdom of Go(i.(^) 

And some who had followed him until then, turned their 
backs on him when he declared: 

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man 

And drink his bloody 
You have not life in yourselves. (^) 

To this day many of his most characteristic and im- 
portant words are Stumbling-blocks to his professed dis- 
ciples, because they persist in applying to his Oriental 
metaphors a principle of literal interpretation that they 
by no means always apply to the formal definitions of 
councils and the statements of creeds. Such a case, for 
example, as this : 

If any man come to me, 

And hate not his father or mother, 

And wife and children, 

And brothers and sisters, 

Yea, even his own life, 
He cannot be disciple of mine. 
And whoso does not carry his own cross and come after me, 
He cannot be disciple of mine.(^) 



III 

Eenan is quite justified in his assertion that the wit and 
humor of Jesus constitute one of the most impressive fea- 
tures of the Gospels. Certainly, they are the most dis- 
tinctive feature. Most amazing, therefore, is the failure, 
the total failure, of interpreters in all ages to recognize 
what is by all odds the most stining quality of Jesus 
among the great religious teachers of the world, the faculty 

(Tjohn 3:3. 

(2) John G:53. 

(«) Luke 14:20, 27. 



o6 FUXDA:>tEXTALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

that sets him head and shoulders above all others. The 
reason for this failure is^ no doubt, the fact that even now 
to speak of Jesus as a humorist will strike the majority 
of pious Christians as a shocking irreverence. And this 
again is because people in general have come to entertain 
a low and degTading idea about wit and humor. It is 
quite true that much of that humor'' of which the Ameri- 
can people are the proud and sole possessors is nothing bet- 
ter than a feeble jocosity alternating with dull buffoonery. 
We are in danger of becoming a nation of clowns and 
patrons of clowns. We never do anything by halves, but 
our labors to be funny are our hardest work. We are fond 
of quoting: 

A merry heart doeth-good like medicine, (^) 

but not so fond of another saying of the Wise Man : 

For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, 
So is the laughter of the fool.(-) 

As a people we have little appreciation of the happy 
medium between sobs and smiles, gTins and groans. W^ 
have never learned that to be cheerful it is not necessary 
to giggle, nor that to be serious one need not weep. 
^'Quips and cranks and wanton wiles'' abound in our con- 
versation, in our newspapers, in our books, to such an 
extent as to suggest national lack of discrimination between 
condiments and foods. A dash of tabasco in soup or gravy 
is appetizing, but a spoonful is torture. Too much fun is 
worse than none. A continuous round of pleasure ends 
in complete boredom — as that wise man imderstood who 
said, ^^Life would be quite tolerable but for its amuse- 
ments." 

The suggestion that Jesus used wit and humor freely 
in his discourses will give a distinct shock to many read- 
ers, in whose minds still lingers the Puritan superstition 

i^) Prov. 17:22. 
(') Eccl. 7:6. 



JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 39 

that a deep gravity of word and demeanor is alone suit- 
able to the discussion of religious themes. But the Puri- 
tans and their descendants have shown themselves quite 
unable to appreciate either the nature of Jesus or the na- 
ture of wit and humor. For wit and humor are by no 
means restricted to that volatile jesting whose chief func- 
tion is to conceal absence of thought. They do not con- 
sist in sheer boisterous banalities. Their purpose is not 
merely to provoke laughter of light-minded folk. They 
have their serious use also^ and this is by far their most 
important function inliterature and life. 

Jesus always spoke with deep inner seriousness, yet 
much of the time with wit that gives his teachings point 
and keenness, nearly always with lambent humor that 
makes his sayings tender and appealing. He at least com- 
prehended, if some of his followers do not, that a sense of 1 
humor is imperatively needed for the attainment of true 
moral values, and is an indispensable part of the equip- 
ment of a great religious teacher. 

It is precisely this trait that makes the Synoptic Jesus 
so human a figure. Other great religious teachers — Con- 
fucius, Buddha, Moses, Mohammed— have taken their 
message and themselves with that deadly seriousness which 
tends to defeat its own purpose. The ethical sobriety of 
Jesus is wholly consistent with an intellectual gayety of 
the sort that the French call esprit, and not a little of his 
power is distinctly traceable to this element, which the 
Christian sages have so persistently ignored — possibly be- 
cause the saving gift of humor has been withheld from so 
many of them, but more probably because they felt that 
to attribute humor to Jesus would be almost like accusing 
him of sinfulness. The truest reverence for the Master 
is to see Him as he was. 

Wit, it is commonly agreed, consists in putting together 
objects or ideas not usually associated, so as to produce a 
pleasing sensation of surprise. But the quick flash of wit 
is like an electric spark, in that it not only surprises but 



40 fuxda:\[extals of cheistiaxity 

illumines. Jesus uses wit not so much to give pleasure 
as to give light. His sayings never provoke a laugh, but 
often they make one see truth with a vividness not other- 
wise possible. Perhaps oftenest his wit takes the form of 
apothegm, neat, terse, pregnant sayings, frequently para- 
doxical, that, once heard, fix themselves in memory for- 
ever. Familiar cases are: 

A house divided against itself cannot stand. (^) 

The Kingdom of God does not come with watching for 
it.(^j 

A man^s life does not consist in the extent of his posses- 
sions. (^) 

To him that has will be given, 

And from him that has not will be taken even what 
he has.(^) 

Every one that exalts himself will be humbled, 

And he that humbles himself will be exalted. (^) 

^Vhoever would be first among you will be your slave. C^) 

I came to cast fire upon the earth, 
Would that it were already kindled ! 

So I have a baptism to undergo, 

And how am I distressed till it is accomplished ! 

Think you I have come to give peace in the earth ? 
Xo, I assure you, but rather dissension.(') 
Sometimes the wit takes the form of epigram : 

Give then to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, 
And to God what belongs to God. (^) 

On a few occasions Jesus seems actually to banter his 
adversaries, the Pharisees. Thus, when they demanded 
of him, ^^By what authority do you do these things ?'' such 
as driving the traders out of the Temple, he replied : 

r) Mark 3:25. 

(M Luke 17:20. 

(3) Luke 12:15. 

(') Matt. 13:12. 

(') Luke 14:11 (repeated several times). 

(«) Matt. 20:27. 

(') Luke 12:49-51. 

(8) Mark 12:17, etc. 



JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHER 41 

I will also ask you a question: 

The baptism of John — 

Was it from Heaven or from men ? 

His nonplussed critics dared say neither the one nor the 
other, and so replied, ^^We don't know.'' So Jesus closed 
the matter by saying, ^^Neither do I tell you by what 
authority I do these things." (^) At another time, when 
messengers came from the Baptist, asking for a clear dec- 
laration whether he was the Messiah or not, after answer- 
ing them Jesus spoke to the crowd in this bantering way: 

What went you out into the wilderness to see ? 

A reed swayed by the wind ? 
But what went you out to see? 
A man robed in soft garments? 
' Lo, people who w^ear gorgeous clothing and live in 

luxury are in palaces. 
But what went you out to see ? A prophet ? 
Yes, T assure yon, and more than a prophet. (^) 

The truth is of course that we have been so long pre- 
occupied with the profound spiritual truth in the words of 
Jesus that we have failed to note their pungency. Few 
teachers have been so signal masters of the art of packing 
a great thought into a few simple words. But as we read 
further in the Gospels we discover that epigram and para- 
dox not infrequently pass over into hyperbole. With some 
persons, exaggerated statement of fact or truth is uncon- 
scious, the result of over-eagerness to make a strong im- 
pression on hearer or reader; but with others, as with 
Jesus, exaggeration is deliberate, in whicli case it is al- 
most invariably humorous. Only hopeless intellectual 
dulness could take literally such sayings as : 

If your right eye causes you to stumble, 
Pluck it out and cast it from you,(^) 



r) Matt. 21:25, etc. 

C) Matt. 11:7; Luke 7:24, 

(») Matt. 5:29. 



42 ru:2sDAMEI^TALS OF CHRISTIAiSriTY 

The very hairs of your head are numbered. (^) 

If these shall hold their peace, 
The very stones will cry out.(^) 

Easier might heaven and earth pass away 
Than for one dot of an i to lapse from the Law.(^) 

If you have faith as a 'grain of mustard seed, you 
will say to this mountain, 
*^^Eemove hence to yonder place/^ 
And it will remove. (^) 

It is easier for a camel to go through a needless eye, 
Than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.(^) 

These are examples of that method of overstatement for 
' the sake of vividness, or with intentional humor, which is 
a fundamental characteristic of American speech and writ- 
ing. We, if any Western people, ought to be able to com- 
prehend and rightly evaluate this Oriental element in the 
teaching of Jesus. To some sober-minded persons even 
among us, however, all exaggeration seems nothing else 
than a form of lying ; and to such it will therefore appear 
to be a shocking and irreverent thing to say of Jesus that 
on any occasion he exaggerated. They could never com- 
prehend the principle on which exaggeration may be ethic- 
ally justifiable, which has been stated (the statement is it- 
self a good example of humorous exaggeration) in this 
fashion: ^^When you tell a lie, tell it so big that nobody 
will believe it, and then it isn't a lie.'' 

n^Matt. 10:30. 

(2) Luke 19:40. 

(3) Luke 16:17, etc. 

(*) Matt. 17:20. How persistently in all the a-^es men have mis- 
understood and misapplied that saying, as a literal promise of 
wonder-working powers, and have refused to see the grim warning 
that lurks under the kindly humor of the saying. Jesus would con- 
vey to us, that the great thing is not to move mountains but to 
have faith, and the man who desires faith in order that he may 
move mountains puts himself on the level of Simon Magus, and 
will never come within seeing distance of the faith. 

n Matt. 19:24. 



JESUS THE PEOPHET AIS^D TEACHER 43 

What interpreters of the Puritan temperament have 
done with the sayings of Jesus is matter of history. See 
the average commentary or sermon on texts like the fol- 
lowing : 

Whoever smites you on one cheek;, 
Turn to him the other also.(^) 
Why do you behold the splinter in your brother's eye, 
And consider not the beam in your 0T\ai eye?(-) 
I say not to you. Until seven times, 
But, Until seventy^times seven. (^) 
For every idle word that men shall speak 
They will give account in the Day of Judgment. 
For by your words you will be acquitted. 
And by your words you will be condemned. (^) 

Yet let not those of us who clearly see the humor in 
such words make the opposite mistake from that of those 
who are blind to the humor: they have been overliteral 
in interpretation; let us not evacuate such words of all 
serious meaning. Take the last saying above quoted as a 
test: hyperbole, no doubt, but that should not be an ex- 
cuse for lightly dismissing it from our minds as of no 
consequence. For, though a humorous saying, it has a 
serious and profound meaning, that justifies itself to every 
man of sound moral sense. Men will be judged, men are ' 
daily judged, on the basis of character, and character is 
the net result of word and deed. Every act, every word, 
contributes something to the result. A man is never again 
just the same man after he speaks or does. Each deed and 
word automatically reacts, leaving its mark, great or in- 
finitesimal, helping to fashion character. 

To those unfortunates who lack the sixth sense, the wit 
and humor of Jesus cannot be other than a stumblins:- 



{') Matt. 5:38. 

(^) Matt. 7:3. 

{^) Matt. 18:22. 

{') Matt. 12:36, 37. 



44 iTTNbAM:E]NrtAtS OF CHRiSTIA^lt't 

block. They will to the end of time be no more able to 
t^omprehend him than was Nieodemus. Insisting on tak- 
ing the words of Jesus^ as the French say, ^^to the bottom 
of the letter/' they will always turn into foolishness the 
Wisdom of the Wisest. Understanding of humor, like the 
use of it in teaching, is possible only to one who has some- 
thing of the equipment of the philosopher: it demands 
vision broad enough to take in the incongruities between 
aspiration and achievement, the contrasts of joy and sor- 
row, the facts of success and failure, of sin and righteous- 
ness, that make up human life and constitute not only its 
humor but its pathos. For true humor is never far from 
tears. 

Even more characteristic of the teaching of Jesus than 
the humor of hyperbole is a delicate irony, never absent 
long from his discourses in the Gospels, that makes his 
words glow and warm. Of this character is the entire 
passage in the Sermon on the Mount on human worries : 

Wherefore I say to you: 
Do not worry about your life, 

What you will eat and what you will drink ; 
Nor for your body, what you will wear. 

Is not life more than food, 

And the body than clothing? 

Look at the birds of the air : 

They sow not, they reap not, 

They gather not into barns ; 
Yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. 

Are not you worth much more than they ? 

And which of you, by worrying, can add to his life a 
single inch? 
Then why do you worry about clothing? 
Consider well the lilies of the field, how they grow ; 

They toil not, nor do they spin, 
But I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was 
robed like one of these. 



JESUS THE PKOPHET AND TEACHEK 45 

Now if Grod SO clothes the grass of the field, 

Which to-day is and to-morrow is cast into an oven, 
Will he not much more clothe you ? 

men of little trast!(^) 

Briefer passages, perhaps less familiar, Avill illustrate 
the quality quite as well. What, for example, could appeal 
to a popular audience more effectively than this little re- 
minder of those family jars that were doubtless quite as 
common then as now: 

For I am come T . . to set the daughter-in-law against 
the mother-in-law. (^) 
Cases of this gentle satiric humor abound everywhere: 
Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or harm, 

To save life or kill?(^) 
They that are healthy have no need of a doctor 
But they that are sick. 

1 am not come to call the righteous to repentance, 
But sinners. (*) 

He that is without sin among you. 
Let him throw the first stone at her.(^) 

How unanswerable, how wakening of somnolent conscience, 
how utterly abashing, that ironic thrust ! In many of the 
parables, this gentle play of humor adds greatly to their 
force. For example: 

ISTdbody sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak. 
For the patch will tear away from the cloak. 
And a worse rent follows. 
Nor do they put new wine into old skins ; 

If they do, the skins burst and the wine runs out, 
And the skins are spoiled; 

(M Matt. 6:19-34; cf. the somewhat different version in Luke 
12:22-34, the latter thought by some to be nearer to the original 
form of the discourse. 

n Matt. 10:35. 

(^) Mark 3:4. 

(*) Luke 5:31, 32. 

(«) John 8:7. 



46 PUNDAMEJN^TALS OF CHKISTIA]S"ITY 

But they put new wine into fresh skins, 
And both are preserved together. (^) 

The parable of the two slaves, in w^hich one is represented 
as refusing to his fellow the mercy that his master has 
just shown him;(^) and that of the wedding guests and 
their frivolous excuses, (") are other familiar instances. 
Sometimes the irony is a little less playful, becomes rather 
sharp pointed, just a pinch of bitter with the sweet, yet 
without losing its kindliness. As : 

If you were blind, you would have no sin; 

But now you say, ^We see^^ — 
Your sin remains !(^) 

If I by Beelzebub cast out demons^ 

By whom do your sons cast them out?(^) 

How much more then is a man of more value than 
a sheep !(^) 

Will you lay down your life for me ! 

Truly, I tell you truly, The cock will not crow 
Before you have thrice disowned me !(^) 

Have I been so long time with you, 

And you do not know me, Philip !(^) 

Socrates taught the world for all time the effectiveness 
of irony in controversy, but no more effectively than Jesus. 
How could the Pharisaic opposition to his teachings be 
more neatly satirized than by this comparison of his adver- 
saries to the sulky children whom nothing can please and 
who ^Svon't plav'^ whatever their companions do? 

To what shall I compare this generation? 

It is like children sitting in the market-places, 
Who call to their fellows and sa}^ 



1) Matt. 9:16, 17. 

2) Matt. 18:23-25. 
«) Luke 14:15-24. 
*) John 9:4. 

'-) Matt. 12:27. 

«) Matt. 12:12. 

•) John 13:38. 

») eJohn 14:9. 



JESUS THE PROPHET AND TEACHEK 47 

^We piped to you and yon did not dance ; 

We wailed and you did not beat the breast/^ 
For John came neither eating nor drinking, 

And you say, *^^He has a demon/^ 
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, 

And you say, ^^See ! a glutton and a drunkard, 

A friend of tax-gatherers and outcasts/^ (^) 

One should be charitable and gentle in judgment of 
modern interpreters who have so completely overlooked 
this side of the Master's teaching, when we note that the 
delicate point of his humor so often missed its mark with 
his original hearers. Accustomed as Oriental people are 
to this method, the average Galilean peasant does not ap- 
pear to have been a very humorsome person, and the aver- 
age Pharisee was quite destitute of humor — or he could 
never have been a Pharisee ! Most of those to whom Jesus 
spoke seem to have belonged to the class, still by far the 
larger part of mankind, who can never understand a hu- 
morous saying, unless with it they were handed a diagram 
and mathematical proof of the proposition. Even the 
Twelve were, as a Scotchman would say, ^Verra slow on 
the uptake." When Jesus warned them to ^^beware of the 
Pharisees' yeast," it required an elaborate explanation to 
make tliem comprehend that their Master was talking 
about doctrine, not bread. An incident of the last days 
affords a fine illustration, both of the irony of Jesus and 
the dourness of spirit that made his hearers so incompre- 
hensive. The throngs and acclamation of Palm Sunday, 
the crowds of eager hearers in the Temple on several suc- 
ceeding days, have blinded the disciples to the actual situa- 
tion. So Jesus says to them, in effect : ^^This is the hour, 
not of triumph, but of danger ; our enemies are upon us ; 
this is a time for swords ; if your own safety is paramount, 
provide yourselves -with money and weapons." As usual, 

n Matt. 11:16-19; Luke 7:31-34. 



48 rUXDAME]N^TALS OF CHRISTIAXITY 

when quick comprehension of a nice thought was required, 
the disciples entirely misunderstood. They took his irony 
literally^ as stupid people always do, and replied, ^^Here 
are two swords." Jesus saw that it was vain to attempt to 
penetrate solid ivory and gave it up, saying, ^'It is 
enough !'' — what is the use of my talking any longer. (^) 

Although Jesus could always be patient with stupidity, 
bad faith sometimes provoked him to sharper words. Tlie 
button then comes off the foil, and a deadly thrust is made 
at evil. Irony becomes sarcasm, keen, biting, lethal. Of 
many examples these will suffice : 

They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne. 

And lay them on men^s shoulders^ 
But themselves will not touch them with their finger. (-) 
You seek me, not because you beheld signs, 
But because you ate the loaves and were filled. (^) 
Give not a sacred thing to dogs, 

N"or cast your pearls before swine, 
Lest they trample them under foot 

And turn and bite you!(^) 
Can the blind lead the blind? 
Will not both fall into a pit?(^) 

Why do you call me Master, Master 
And do not the things that I say?(^) 

Yet even in his bitterest denunciations there is a saving 
touch of humor — no hardihood of evil could make his 
Avords other than severely kind : 

Woe to you Chorazin ! 
Woe to you Bethsaida ! 
For had the mighty works been done in Tyre and Sidon 
That have been done in you, 

1) Luke 22:35-38. 

2) Matt. 23:4. 
s) John 6:26. 
') Matt. 7:6. 
'^) Luke 6:39. 
«) Luke 6:46. 



^i'EStlS 'I'lIE P'E01*HE'T AKD TEACH^ElSi 49 

Long ago would they have repented in sackcloth ailduslies.(') 

Woe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
Because you scour sea and land to make a single proselyte, 

And when it is done, 
You make him tenfold more a son of Gehenna than your- 
selves !(^) 

AVoe to you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees, hypocrites ! 
Because you pay tithe of mint and dill and cumin, 
And have neglected the weightier matters of the Law : 
Justice and mercy and faith. 

The former you should have done. 

And not left the other undone. 

Blind leaders ! who strain out the gnat 

And swallow the camel !(^) 

The sting of such words helps us to understand whence 
came those shouts of ^^Crucify him! Crucify him!" on that 
fateful Friday morning in Jerusalem. 

IV 

The instinct of the Galilean people was sound when 
they recognized Jesus, from the very beginning of his 
ministry, as the successor of the prophets. (*) His disci- 
ples repeated to him on one occasion the gossip current 
among the people: many besides Herod(^) believed him to 
be John the Baptist risen from the dead: others said he 
was Elijah or Jeremiah reborn in the flesh: generally he 
was held to be ^^one of the prophets." (^) But he vras niort^ 
than successor, he was fruition, he was culmination. In 
him prophetism reaches its climax, delivers its message in 
its fulness. As God's prophet, Jesus did more than all 

^) Matt. 11:21. 

) Matt. 23:15. 

) Matt. 23:23, 24. 
M Mark 6:15, Luke 7:16; Matt. 14:5: 21:11: John 7:40. 
^) Mark 6:14. 

Matt. 6:14; Mark 8:28; Luke 0:10. 



50 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

who preceded him to make God known, understandable, 
lovable. If we have dwelt long on the unique form of 
his teaching, we must not let this prevent our appreciation 
of the far greater import of the substance. 

The history of religions is the record of an age-long 
contest between prophet and priest, and the priest has 
nearly always had the better of it. The reason he that 
runs may read: the prophet seeks to move us by the rav- 
ishment of high ideals ; the priest subtly appeals to us with 
a set of plain rules. The prophet is a mystic, the priest a 
realist. The prophet is the man of vision, an intuitional- 
ist; the priest a man of precedent, a legalist. Prophetic 
religion makes a heavy draft on the best on man; priest 
religion is content to accept man's average — or even a little 
less. The prophet sets before men a rough and thorny 
road leading to the heights ; the priest opens to men the 
way of least resistance along the plain. Prophetic re- 
ligion is only for the thoughtful, the earnest, the aspiring; 
priest religion is for the idle, the careless, the selfish. 
The prophet calls for renunciation, so few heed his words ; 
the priest permits indulgence, and therefore has a large 
following. 

So it was ever in Judaism. The prophets enjoined a 
new life of justice, mercy, righteousness ; the priests sought 
to establish a cult, with machinery for obtaining on easy 
terms God's pardon for failure to do what the stem 
prophet exacted. Piety was to be accepted for righteous- 
ness, sacrifice for mercy, tithes for justice. The prophets 
said that God required of his worshipers a pure heart; 
the priests said that he required clean linen. The one sort 
of religion cherished as its ideal social justice, the welfare 
of the people; the other was content with rites scrupu- 
lously performed by the rich. One stood for democracy, 
the other for aristocracy. 

The prophets had always insisted that the relation of 
man to God is personal; the bond between them is an 



JESUS THE PKOPHET AIsTD TEACHEE 51 

ethical bond. God is holj; man must be rigliteons. The 
priests had always declared that the relation between man 
and God is mechanical, not vital ; that it is established and 
maintained by rites and sacraments mediated by appointed 
persons. The prophets taught that every man has direct 
approach to God, and so is privileged at any time or place 
to come into intimate relations with him. This doctrine 
was ruination to a priesthood, which was under profes- 
sional obligation to insist that approach to God and for- 
giveness of sins can be had only through Temple and 
priests. Priestly intercession was therefore a necessity; 
God would not hear the cries for mercy of laymen, however 
penitent, but must first be appeased by offerings and sac- 
rifices made through a priest, who thus held the Keys of 
Heaven. 

Against this theoiy of priesthood and practice of cere- 
monial religion, Jesus contended as he contended against 
no other thing. He maintained that it was a perversion 
of the character of God and of religion, the sin of all sins. 
The great burden of his teaching was the nearness of 
God to men, his readiness to pardon sin, his impartial love 
for all his creatures; and it was upon this basis of the 
character of God as Father of all mankind that he 
founded his practical work as institutor of the Kingdom 
of God. The Sermon on the Mount is nothing else than 
variations in many keys upon this one theme. (^) For 
priesthood and all its pretentions, for its fruits as incar- 
nated in the Pharisees, Jesus manifests utmost contempt 
and detestation. For purely formal and ceremonial re- . 
ligion he reserves his severest censures ; he does everything 
possible to make plain that the prophetic type of religion I 
is to him the only religion. It would be superfluous to 
quote passacres in support of this summary characterization 
of the teaching of Jesus ; any reader who cannot recognize 
its accuracy, and instantly call to mind a score of sayings 

rTsce esp. Matt. 5:45; G:4, 14; 7:11; cf. Mark 11:25, 26. 



52 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

that justify it, convicts himself either of unfamiliaritv 
with the teaching or of failure to comprehend it. 

His own work finished, Jesus sends forth his disciples 
into the world to proclaim this prophetic religion, as the 
most precious truth he has to leave with them, the one 
truth that the world needs to learn. And what do these 
disciples ? They instantly, with one accord, abandon pro- 
phetic religion and devote themselves to establishing a 
new cult — excusing themselves, no doubt, on the plea that 
they were making Jesus the centre of that cult. They 
failed to see that at the very time they were deifying Jesus 
they were defying him. They began a process at Jerusa- 
lem that went on as Christianity advanced, by which the 
idea of holiness again became ceremonial and Christian 
prophets were transformed into Catholic priests. Follow- 
ers of the Christ deserted the Jewish cult only to devise 
another still more outrageous in pretensions and sterner in 
spiritual tyranny. They began the greatest apostasy in 
history: they helped to revive and make permanent as 
orthodoxy of the ages the gravest and most pernicious of 
all heresies: that God is well pleased by being worshiped 
with things instead of with hearts. Hence, to this day, 
the splendor of Christian churches and the emptiness of 
Christian lives. 

It lessens the emphasis of this condemnation but little 
to urge that the disciples of Jesus merely did what the 
disciples of Buddha and other great religious leaders and 
teachers have invariably done: that an irresistible ten- 
dency of human nature leads men always to supplement 
religious and ethical teachings with a church and a cult. 
Even Comte, who hoped that he had demolished all 
previous religions, felt himself compelled to invent a new 
cult, which he called the worship of humanity. True this 
is, no doubt, but its truth neither explains nor excuses 
the immediacy or the completeness of the apostasy of the 
disciples of Jesus. Their one excuse, such as it is, naust 



JESUS THE PEOPHET AKD TEACHER 53 

be that they never really understood their Master, and 
that the temporary ascendancy he had obtained over their 
minds gave place to the renewed ideas of their race and 
religion, so soon as the power of his personality no longer 
controlled them. Only on such a hypothesis can we ac- 
count for their naive belief that their cries of ^^Lord, Lord'' 
were an equivalent for doing what he had commanded. 



OHAPTEE III 

JESUS THE EEVEALER OF GOD 

No trait in the personality of Jesus is more arresting than 
the greatness of his claims. Both implicit and explicit 
in his teachings are assertions of right to direct the lives 
of men that^ in the case of any other, would be pronounced 
foresumptuons, extravagant or ridiculous. He is the one 
person in all history who could make such claims without 
being laughed out of consideration by all serious persons. 
Why? 

We have already noted the tone of authority in his teach- 
ing that astonished his hearers, but we have not analyzed 
it, nor even considered it more than casually. Among his 
injunctions to his disciples was this: 

Be not called Eabbi^ 

For One is your Teacher, 
And you are all brothers. (^) 

Such words can escape accusation of conceit or arrogance 
only if Jesus was, and knew himself to be, the supreme 
Teacher of his time and of all time. Nothing but his pos- 
session of such knowledge can explain or justify his asser- 
tion for himself and his words of a higher sanction than 
could be ascribed to the prophets and teachers of Israel : 

The Queen of the South will rise up in the Judgment 
with the men of this generation and condemn 
them, 

Because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the 
wisdom of Solomon, 



(1) Matt. 23:8. 

54 



JESUS THE REVEAEER OE GOD 55 

And see ! One greater than Solomon is here ! 

Men of Nineveh will rise up in the Judgment with this 

generation and condemn it. 
Because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, 
And see ! One greater than Jonah is here !(^) 

And so, whenever he saw fit, Jesus asserted and exercised 
the right to set aside tradition. In the Sermon on the 
Mount he repeatedly contrasts his own teaching with Jew- 
ish tradition, and even with the Law: 

You have heard that it has heen said. . . 
But I say to you . . . 

recurs again and again, and the ^^I'^ is very emphatic. 
Jesus refused to admit the validity of the cut-and-dried 
Pharasaic piety; their parvitudes regarding observance of 
the Sabbath he annulled in a single phrase: 

The Son of Man is Master of the Sabbath also.(^) 

The punctilious pedantry of rule that ignored the state of 
affections and will from which all true obedience springs, 
and concentrated attention and effort on the mere outward 
act, was an abomination to Jesus. In like manner he set 
aside the precepts regarding fasting, begun in the Law 
and greatly elaborated by tradition, sweeping away the 
whole system: 

Now, when you fast, be not like the hypocrites; 

For they put on gloomy looks. 

So as to let men see they are fasting. 
I tell you truly, They have received their reward. 
But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, 

So as not to seem to men to fast. 

But to your Father who is in secret ; 
And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.(^) 



(^) Matt. 12:41, 42. 

(2) Matt. 5:27, 28; 33, 34; 38, 39; 43, 44. 

(3) Mark 2:28; Luke 6:5. 
(*) Matt. 6:16-18. 



56 FUNDAMEIS^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

He even warmly approved the practice of his disciples, in 
the face of criticism by the Pharisees, and made feast days 
of the fasts of his people. (^) The mass of accumulated 
tradition, so dear to the teachers of his people, could not 
stand before his profoundly spiritual intuition. This vras 
especially true of those tribal taboos, coming dov^na from a 
past of superstition and priestly imposture, that claimed 
all the sanctions of the Law, but never had the slightest 
title to a divine origin. At one swoop he made null and 
void the whole elaborate rules of "clean'' and "unclean," 
when he said : 

Not that which enters into the mouth defiles men, 
But that which comes out of the mouth. (2) 

And yet even this was not the sum of his offending, in 
the eyes of Pharisees ; he deliberately set aside, on his own 
authority solely, positive precepts of the Law that they 
regarded as indubitably of Mosaic origin. And by so do- 
ing, he of course virtually claimed to be superior as reli- 
gious teacher and lawgiver to Moses, who was believed to 
have received the Law directly from God. Thus Jesus 
said, 

Moses for the hardness of your hearts suffered . . . 

But I say to you . . . (^) 
and thereupon laid down a new principle regarding di- 
vorce — or reaffirmed a principle yet more ancient than 
Moses, as others believe. 

Some moderns have been inclined partially to excuse 
the Pharisees, if not boldly defend them, on the ground 
that their fault was after all only that they were too reli- 
gious, as Paul said the Athenians were. But this exculpa- 
tion ignores the chief clause in the indictment: Jesus de- 
nied that the Pharisees were religious at all. In modern 

(M Luke 5:33-39. 

(=») Matt. 15: 18-20; Mark 7:15, 18-2a 

(*) Matt. 19l3-12; Mark 10:2-12. 



JESUS THE REVEALER OF GOB 57 

phrase, they did not practice religion, but religiosity. They 
had a semblance of piety, but were strangers to the real 
thing. They were full of bounce and bluff. They were 
^^long'' on promise, "^short" on performance. So Jesus 
called them ^^hypocrites," actors of a part, pretenders to 
religion under whose mask was an essentially irreligious 
character. The case against Pharisaism did not rest 
chiefly on its officious and offensive priggishness, as so 
many readers of the Gospels infer, but on its confusion of 
ethical values. Pharisaism not merely made the unim- 
portant important, which is vexatious, but not serious; it 
made the important unimportant, which is often vexatious 
and always serious. The weighty accusation of Jesus was. 

You leave the commandment of God 
And hold the tradition of men.(^) 

In proof of his charge he specified their traditions regard- 
ing ^^Corban," or dedication of property to Jehovah, the 
chicane by which Pharisees nullified the fifth command- 
ment and evaded obligations to parents. On another occa- 
sion, he reproached Pharisees for nullifying the obligation 
of oaths by traditional glosses on the Law : 

Woe to you, blind leaders ! Who say, 
^^hosoever swears by the Temple, 

It is naught; 
But whosoever swears by the gold of the Temple, 
He is bbund.^^ 
Senseless and blind ! 

For which is greater, the gold, 

Or the Temple that makes the gold sacred? 

And (you say) ^Whosoever swears by the altar, 

It is naught; 

But whosoever swears by the gift on the altar, 
He is bound.^^ 
Blind ! For which is greater, the gift. 

Or the altar that makes the ojif t sacred ? 



\ 



(') Mark 7:8, 9, 13; Matt. 15:3, G. 



58 rUJSTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

He who swears by the altar^ 

Swears 'by it and by everything on it; 
And he who swears by the Temple, 

Swears by it and by Him who dwells in it. 
And he who swears by Heaven^ 

Swears by the throne of God 

And by Him who sits upon it.(^) 

Modern Pharisaism is a worthy lineal descendant of 
the ancient^ malefic, vulpine, ophidian. It also nullifies 
the Law under pretext of greater piety. To do this, it 
has invented a Pentalogue of its own: Thou shalt not 
drink alcoholic liquors ; Thou shalt not use tobacco ; Thou 
shalt not go to the theatre; Thou shalt not play cards; 
Thou shalt not dance. And in most of our highly ^^Chris- 
tian'' circles, if a man but flaunts his obedience of these 
five words of man he may with impunity flout all Ten 
Commandments of God. 

If Jesus precisely appreciated the spiritual condition of 
the ancient Pharisees, what shall be said of the modem? 
Shall we say, as he said, that the outcasts of society are 
entering into the Kingdom, while the sons of the Kingdom 
are shut into the outer darkness ? Certainly it is a fact 
that the lives of a great part of those who flatter themselves 
that they are ^^saved'' are sordid and selfish and unutter- 
ably small and mean. Willingness to renou^nce self, to 
give life for others, is quite as often found among ^^sin- 
ners'' as among ^'^saints.'' Of our friends and neighbors, 
how often the stingiest, crossest, most annoying, least oblig- 
ing, are members of churches ^^in good standing,'' while 
some of the finest people we have ever known make no 
particular boast of having any religion. Is a ^^salvation" 
that does so little for men and women in this world, that 
so palpably fails to make them better members of the 
family, better neighbors, better in business relations, a 
thing really worth while ? Does the character of the aver- 
age ^^Christian" afford good ground for hope that he will 

(^) Matt. 23:16-22. ^^ , 



JESUS THE RE VE ALEE OF GOD 59 

fare better in the next world than an ^^unsaved'' man of 
average decency? When the sheep come to be divided 
from the goats there will be great surprises, for that line 
of division will not rnn along conventional ecclesiastical 
lines. 

II 

Not only some but all the words of Jesus, not his words 
merely but his deeds ^Iso, imply possession of this unique 
character and authority. He never sought honor of men, 
but he accepted as his due their homage and their recogni- 
tion of his singular and transcendent personality, when 
these were spontaneously offered him. Instances that will 
at once suggest themselves to readers of the Gospels are: 

You are God's Son, 

You are IsraeFs King;(^) 

You are the Messiah^ the Son of the living God;(^) 

and the exclamation of the hitherto doubting Thomas, 

My Master and my God!(^) 

Of the same order were the acclamations of the multitudes 
at his entry into Jerusalem: 

Hosannah to the Son of David ! 

Happy he that comes in Jehovah^s name.(*) 

Jesus was not content, however, with merely accepting 
such tributes: he explicitly avowed himself to be Son of 
God, in some exceptional and extraordinary sense, that 
other men could not claim for themselves : 
Before Abraham was born, I am.(^) 



M John 1:49. 

^) Matt. 16:16. 

«) John 20:28. 

*) Matt. 21:9. 

'') John 8:58. 



60 fuxda:siextals or cheistiaxity 

I and the Father are oiie.(^) 

He that has seen me has seen the Father. (2) 

It is true that the most explicit of these declarations are 
found in the fourth Gospel, on the historical accuracy of 
Avhich more doubt has been thrown by modern criticism 
than on the Synoptics: yet the words in John are little 
more precise in assertion than these in Matthew : 

All things have been delivered to me by my Father, 

And no one knows the Son, save the Father : 
Xor does any know the Father^ save the Son, 

And he to whomsoever the Son wills to reveal him.f'^) 

And at the trial before the Sanhedrin, according to the 
first Gospel, the high priest demanded of Jesus on his 
oath the truth about his mission: ^*I adjure you, by the 
living God, to tell us whether you are the Messiah, the 
Son of God.'^ And under the sanctity of that oath, well 
knowing that he was condemning himself to death, Jesus 
made reply, ^^You have said'' — a strong aflBrmative in the 
idiom of his people. (*) There is no real difference, 
therefore, between the fourth Gospel and the first or third 
in this recognition of the unique Sonship of Jesus. 

And therefore, especially in the case of critics unwilling 
to accept this idea of the unique Sonship, serious doubt 
has been suggested whether in any of these accounts we 
have trustworthy words of Jesus — some have even gone 
so far as to deny that anything more than a few detached 
sa^dns^s can with certaintv be attributed to him. Even 
the most destructive of critics have not ventured to ques- 
tion the authenticity of a baker's dozen or so of the words 
ascribed to Jesus in the Sjmoptics ; on the ground, as they 
admit, that these are of such character that they cannot be 

rTjohn 10:29; cf. 10:35, 36. 
{-) John 14:9. 

(^) Matt. 11:27; cf. Luke 10:22. 
(*) Matt. 26:64. 



.Ji:5rS TBTE KEVf-ATTK OF GOD 61 

Rdon&Dy snppo^d to have been invented and :&itli»ed oa 
Jesus bv his contemporaries or by a later generation. That 
is a sound critical principle : and a jnst applicatiom of it 
will be found to validate the greater part of the reported 
sayings of Jesus, not a few merely. 

The words of Jesus mnst be accepted as his, because of 
most it may be fairly said that we cannot rationally sup- 
pose them to have been invented by men who believed 
precisely the contrary, as practically all his generation 
did. And more: with certain few exceptions, men have 
gone on believing the c»:»ntrary to the present moment. 
The disciples of Jesus were devoted to his person^ but his 
gospel never penetrated their minds. They heard, they 
remembered, they recorded, but they never understood, 
much less believed. One of the plainest things in the 
Gospels is that there was no intellectual c^^ntact between 
Jesus and those who heard his message. Even the Twelve 
failed to comprehend : to the last he had no leal disciples. 
Xiaeteen centuries before Hegel he might have unered 
that philosopher s plaintive words : "Only one living man 
luiderstands me — and he misunderstands I" This may well 
be our ground of confidence in the substantial accuracy of 
the reports : it would have been manifestly out of the ques- 
tion for the followers of Jesus to have originated savings 
that they never understood and on which they promptly 
turned their backs. 

But if the discourses of Jesus in the main must be ac- 
cepted as his. for the conclusive reason that the invention 
of them by his disciples is an intellectual and moral im- 
possibility, there is, as has already been noted, one impor- 
tant exception: the apocalyptic discourses attributed to 
him. The principal discourse of this character belongs to 
the last teachings in the Temple, and is said to have Ix^n 
given in response to questions that his disciples were led to 
ask by a prediction of Jesus that a time was soon comin^r 
in which not one stone of that building, the pride of all 



62 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Jews, would be left upon another. The simplest form of 
this discourse is in Mark, chapter thirteen, but it is re- 
edited and much enlarged by Matthew and Luke. Some 
parts of the Marcan discourse may have been uttered by 
Jesus, in relation to the destruction of Jerusalem, to foresee 
which required no supernatural prophetic gift. Judea was 
seething with disaffection toward the Roman rule, and a re- 
bellion was morally certain to come ; and one who had an 
idea of the irresistible power of Rome in that age could not 
be doubtful of the result of such a clash. But the rest of the 
discourse so exactly corresponds to the ideas of the age, has 
so many features in common with Jewish apocalypses, is so 
in harmony with the later preaching of the apostles, that 
we have here the only part of the teaching of Jesus that 
his disciples were competent to invent and send forth to 
the world under the authority of his name. We cannot 
doubt, when we compare this discourse with those that we 
have such solid reasons for accepting as genuine, and noting 
the wide difference in tone and viewpoint, that it is mainly 
the work of the disciples, who were inspired to undertake 
it by a few words of Jesus that they misinterpreted.^ 
This conclusion is strengthened when we find on turning 
back to the earlier teaching and studying it again with 
this thought in mind, we find occasional evidences that 
the first Gospel especially apocalyptizes some of these 
earlier teachings. (^) 

Before passing on, one other thing is worthy of note. 
Some of the modern interpreters of Jesus insist that he 

(^) My critics have a bad habit of accusing me of ignorance of 
every book or idea that I do not choose to mention in my writings. 
May I then enter here this caveat, as a lawyer would say: I am not 
ignorant of the books of Schweitzer, Bousset and others, which main- 
tain the eschatological discourses of Jesus to be his best authenti- 
cated words and his most characteristic teachings. From which 
follows logically enough their theory of Interimsethik. To discuss 
adequately the reasons for rejecting this view would require the 
writing of another volume, at least as large as this. 

(2) For example, compare Matt. 16:28 with Luke 9:27 and 
Mark 9:1. 



JESUS THE REVEALEE OF GOD DO 

did not put into his utterances the fulness of meaning 
that the present generation thinks it finds there. In other 
words, we idealize Jesus too much. But if this were true, 
were it not sufficiently wonderful that a religious teacher 
gave the world a mould into which twenty centuries have 
been pouring their spiritual ideas, without either over- 
flowing or breaking it ? If we have new religious thoughts, 
we do not need for their adequate expression other words 
than Jesus has given us. Surely this sets him apart as the 
unapproachable Teacher of the world. Yet, is not rather 
this the truth : so far from reading into the words of Jesus 
spiritual w^ealth undreamt of by him, we have not yet 
plumbed the depths of meaning that are really there ? 



Ill 

Just as the form of his teaching w^as shaped by his life 
among the peasants of Galilee, so its substance was the 
product of the religious experience of Jesus. From early 
childhood he would no doubt be instructed in the Law and 
Prophets, like every Jewish child. The quickness with 
which he was able, on occasion, to cite an apposite passage 
from these writings is convincing testimony to the thor- 
oughness of his instruction. A writer may think out and 
look up citations at his leisure, but they must come in- 
stantly to a speaker's mind or not at all. Jesus seems also 
to have acquired in some way considerable knowledge of 
rabbinic tradition, though never under formal instruction, 
but its only efi^ect on him was to produce disgust and revul- 
sion. His progress in religious knowledge was normal and 
regular, and he was never compelled in later years to un- 
learn what he had learned earlier, as all his disciples more 
or less had to do. 

And yet we may be sure that what Jesus learned w^as the 
least part of his religious knowledge. The really signifi- 
cant and valuable part he obtained from no human teacher, 



G4 rUK^DAMElSTTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

but from private meditation, and from prayer, through 
which he entered into fellowship mth God such as no other 
man had ever known. The story in Luke's Gospel of his 
visit to the Temple at the age of twelve is something more 
than the instance of religious precocity for which it is 
usually taken: it is a hint of the early dawning of that 
consciousness of unique relationship to God which he after- 
wards expressed in ^Tather'' and ^^Son.'' This sense of 
intimate and unbroken fellowship with God, of complete 
harmony with God's will, became the fundamental fact of 
his consciousness. Out of the deeps of that experience he 
spoke to men of the Father in Heaven, in hope of bring- 
ing them also into fellowship with him — 

We speak what we know, 
And bear testimony of what we have seen, 
And you do not receive our testimony. (^) 

All that Jesus said about God came from the heart of 
his personal experience. To him God w^as never a Mon- 
arch, ruling over subjects w^hose only right is the right to 
obey; nor yet a Judge, before whom sinful man is ar- 
raigned to answer for his misdeeds, meting out punishment 
in proportion to transgression; but a Father, whose love 
for his children is as immeasurable as his Being, whose 
mercy is therefore everlasting. ^^This is the heart of the 
Gospel of Jesus, that Man and every man is the child of 
God, that the spirit which we are is one with the Spirit 
whose we are."(^) This is beyond compare the greatest 
gift of eTesus to the w^orld, this new conception of the 
character of God and his relation to all mankind. His 
relation to the world, and his immutable righteousness, 
the Hebrew prophets had taught clearly enough. Even 
the enlightened heathen were not ignorant on this point. 
Socrates maintained strenuously that God is not the author 

C) John 3:11, 32. 

(^) Francis A. Henrv, ''Jesus and the Christian Religion," p. 58, 
New York, 1916. 



JESUS THE REVEALER OP GOD 65 

of evil J but only of the good. (^) What the world was hun- 
gering to hear was this assurance of the universal Father- 
hood of God. 

Reader, can you think back far enough into your child- 
hood days to realize for a little what the name ^^father" 
once meant to you ? Why, father was the greatest man in 
the world — you pitied other boys who had to get on some- 
how with the kind of fathers they had! Father knew 
everything, father could do anything, father would always 
take care of his boy and see that he came to no harm. And 
father was always "bringing home the most marvelous 
things, he could make the most surprising contrivances, 
he could teach the most amusing games and tell the most 
fascinating stories. O father was a wonder ! 

And what Jesus meant to teach us children of a larger 
growth was to look up to Our Father in Heaven, and think 
of him in like terms. The fountain of all wisdom, the 
source of all power, tenderly caring for his little ones, 
showering gifts upon even the ungrateful, forbearing 
towards the sinful, merciful towards the penitent — such, 
said Jesus, is your Father-God. He wished to reawaken 
the trust of which advancing years and what we call world- 
ly wisdom have bereft us; he urged us to "receive the 
Kingdom of Heaven as a little child," as the only way by 
which we can possibly enter in and possess its glories. 
Jesus did not repudiate or deny or belittle any truth re- 
garding God that the Jew^s had attained : he enriched their 
knoAvledge, he "revealed the whole truth, opened the whole- 
ness of truth.'^(') 

The worst foes of Jesus have ever been, as he himself 
phrased it, "they of his own household." Worse than all 
attacks on his teaching by unbelievers have been misrep- 
resentations of it by professed believers. To this day 

tT Plato^s ^'Republic," bk ii, §379. 

C) George Harris, "A Century's Chanf^e in Keli^ion." p. 71, 
Boston, 1914. 



66 FUITDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

many Christian theologians and preachers vehemently 
deny that Jesus ever intended to teach the universal father- 
hood of God. In this they become the allies of a destruc- 
tive school of criticism, which maintains that Paul and not 
Jesus was the true founder of Christianity, the first to 
teach universalism in religion. But if the historic inter- 
pretation of Paul is correct, he taught no real universal- 
ism: his is a limited universalism of races and nations, 
while as to individuals he taught the narrowest sort of 
particularism, an election of a few to salvation and con- 
demnation of the greater number to perdition. 

As we shall see later, this interpretation does Paul great 
injustice; he is fairly entitled to the praise of being the 
most powerful advocate of universalism among the first 
generation of Christians. The Twelve, if left to them- 
selves, would never have taught or practiced universalism, 
and would have made of the religion of Jesus nothing 
more than an obscure Jewish sect. This is the clear testi- 
mony of the Christian documents. But this merely es- 
tablishes the fact that Paul, who probably never saw the 
face of Jesus, understood him better in this fundamental 
matter than his most intimate companions. But the docu- 
ments also make the fact indisputable that Jesus first 
taught what Paul afterwards so successfully championed, 
and that our religion is rightly named Christianity and 
not Paulinism. Our theology is another question alto- 
gether. 

It is quite possible to qu^ote some words of Jesus that 
seem inconsistent with the view here adopted, such as his 
address to the Twelve when he sent them out to proclaim 
the Good 'News of the Kingdom: 
Into a way of the heathen go not^ 
And a town of the Samaritans enter not ; 
But go rather to the lost sheep of Israelis house. (^) 

But this was a special mission, necessarily confined to a 
n"Matt. 10:6. 



JESUS THE REVEALEE OF GOD 67 

limited sphere, and the injunction merely indicates that 
the time for larger proclamation of the Good News of the 
Kingdom had not yet come, and does not imply purpose 
to restrict the Kingdom to Jews. It may also be con- 
ceded that other words of Jesus, sometimes cited to prove 
a larger aim than a mere national and racial gospel, are 
not altogether decisive: such as, 

The Sahbath was made for man.(^) 
The tax-gatherers and harlots go into the Kingdom of 
God before you. (2) 

But there are declarations not at all reconcilable with 
the notion that Jesus taught the Jewish religion of ex- 
clusiveness : 

Many will come from the east and the west, 

And will sit down with Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob in 

the Kingdom of Heaven^ 
But the Sons of the Kingdom will be cast forth into the 

outer darkness. (^) 

You are the salt of the earthy 
You are the light of the world. ('^) 

More than once Jesus recognized the superior receptiveness 
of the gentiles, as when he declared to the nobleman, ^^I 
have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." (^) If 
we may not plead as evidence, because of their doubtful 
authenticity, Matthew's words of the Great Commission, 
^^Go and make disciples of all the nations" (or gen- 
tiles), (^) we are not so enjoined from citing the words 
preserved by Luke, essentially identical in meaning: 



/I \ 


Mark 


2: 


27. 




/2\ 


Matt. 


21 


:31 




/8\ 


Matt. 


8: 


11, 


12. 


/4\ 


Matt. 


0: 


13, 


14. 


/5\ 


Matt. 


8: 


10; 


Luke 7:0. 


/e\ 


Matt. 


2^ 


;:19 





68 FUXDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

You will be my witnesses. 

Both in Jenisalem, 

And in all Judea and Samaria, 
x4nd to the uttermost part of the earth. (^) 

And most significant of all, perhaps, is the fact that the 
universalism of Jesus is the reason assigned by Luke for 
his rejection at his own home, ITazareth. As the third 
Gospel relates the story, Jesus told the Jews plainly that 
they w^ere not God's ^^chosen" people, in any such sense 
as to exclude other peoples from his love and mercy. And 
the w^orst of it was, that he proved his point from their own 
Scriptures. He cited the instance, familiar to every one 
of them, of Elisha's lodging with a poor widow of Zarc- 
phath, and followed this with the equally familiar story of 
the cure of Xaaman of leprosy. (^) 

Yet, after all, our reliance should be on the general 
drift and spirit of the teachings, rather than on any 
isolated ^^proof-texts" that can be made to mean pretty 
much anything we desire them to mean. The significance 
of most of the parables is unmistakable. If we might per- 
vert into a narrow sense such as those in the fifteenth chap- 
ter of Luke — the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, the Lost 
Son — we cannot so easily limit the Sower and the Tares, 
with the interpretation of Jesus himself, ^^The field is the 
words.'T) The Sheep and the Goats, the Talents, the 
Wise and Foolish Virgins, (*) and above all the Good 
Samaritan, (^) are incapable of perversion to Jewish ex- 
clusiveness. In the last named parable, Jesus makes a 

(M Acts 1:8. 

( = ) Luke 4:10-30. 

(*) Matt. 13:3 sq. 18 sq. 24 sq. and the parallel passages. 

(*) Matt. 13:38. There can be little doubt that the author or 
final editor of the first Gospel was not a hearty universalist. He 
shows in many cases a disposition to edit the sayings in a particu- 
laristic sense. Compare, for example, his story of the Syro-Phene- 
cian woman, with the version of Mark, as given in any Harmony, 
and likewise his version and Luke's of the sermon at Nazareth. Yet 
Matthew gfives most of the parables that have a universal trend. 

(^) Luke 10:30 sq. 



JESUS THE EEVEALER OF GOB 69 

member of a despised and hated race a better exemplar of 
true religion than the most pious Jews, priests and Levites. 
This must indeed have been gall and bitterness : 

The fourth Gospel is so outspoken in its universality 
that not a few critics have made this an objection to its 
authenticity : 

For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten 

Son, 
That whosoever trusts in him should not perish, 
But have eternal life.(^) 

^ ^Whosoever'' is a word very prominent in the Johannine 
writings, and its content is as large as humanity. So when 
certain Greeks sought the disciples in the Temple, wishing 
to see Jesus, the Master hailed this as the climax of his 
career : 

The hour is come that the Son of Man should be honored. (-) 

It may, of course, be argued by the champions of Paul 
or others that the fourth Gospel was not written until many 
years after the great apostle to the gentiles had made uni- 
versalism part and parcel of the Gospel. No one will 
question the historic fact that it was through Paul mainly 
that the principle of universalism gained general accep- 
tance; but that is quite a different proposition from as- 
serting that he invented the principle. He never claimed 
to do so, but in this, as in all his preaching, asserted that 
he was the interpreter and ambassador of Jesus. The 
fourth Gospel at least shows how Christians had come, by 
the close of the first century, to understand the teachings 
of Jesus — that they were by that time unanimous in at- 
tributing the universalism c^i their message to Je^^is and 
not to Paul. 



(^) John 3:16. 
(^) John 12:23. 



70 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

IV 

As life with God was the secret of the character of Jesus, 
so love of God is the foundation-stone of his teaching. 
To love his Father in Heaven was the spontaneous im- 
pulse of his pure soul, which found in God the companion- 
ship and sympathy denied it among men. Every word 
and act of his life was a manifestation of this love — 

My food is to do the will of him that sent me, 
And to accomplish his work.(^) 

When, therefore, Jesus was asked, "What is the first 
commandment of the Law ?" without hesitation he repeated 
the words, the Shema of the synagogue sendee : 

Hear Israel: 

Jehovah our God is one Jehovah : 

And thou shalt love Jehovah thy God with all the heart, 

And with all the soul, 

And with all the mind, 

And with all the strength !(^) 

And because Jesus saw that if God were so loved, as a 
merciful and tender and holy Father, there could be but 
one result, he gave as the second commandment, again 
quoting familiar words of the Law : 

Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. (^) 



(^) John 4:34. 

(2) Mark 12:29; Deut. 6:4, 5. 

(2) Mark 12:31; Lev. 19:18. To Matthew Arnold it seemed 
passing strange to find these words in Leviticus, but that was be- 
j cause he did not fully understand their significance there. In 
' Leviticus the words are clan ethics — "neighbor" is another Jew; 
as Jesus spoke them, they are universal ethics, "neighbor" is any 
fellow man. Inasmuch as Jesus did thus quote from the Law to 
express his own profoundest teaching, all modern Jews and some 
modern Christians, deny his originality. He is not the one and 
only Teacher, they declare, but the last in a long line of Jewish 
prophets, and if his outlook seems a little broader and further, it 
is not so much that he is greater as that he is later. As somebody 
has said, "A dwarf can see further than a giant — if he is mounted 
on the shoulders of the giant." We need not pause to controvert 
this view. 



JESUS THE RE VE ALEE OF GOD 71 

Fatherhood and brotherhood, then, were correlative and 
complementary ideas and words with Jesus. Love of God 
necessarily implied love of fellow, and the two constituted 
the principle of the Kingdom of God : a human society of 
which God was founder and head and all men members; 
bound together, not by laws and institutions, but by the 
stronger, if less palpable, tie of human brotherhood. A 
Kingdom would seem logically to imply a king and sub- 
jects, but Jesus never uses either word, or anything equiv- 
alent to them. God i§ not King but Father ; men are not 
subjects but children — that is his way of describing both; 
and this is a fact that is unimpeachable testimony to his 
habitual thought of God. 

And it is equally fact that Jesus had little to say about 
man's relations and duties to God; he confined himself 
mainly to men's duties and relations to each other. What 
he did say about worship and service of God was, that it 
might not be suffered to take the place of justice and 
mercy to our fellows. ISTothing so stirred Jesus to holy 
indignation as pretense of piety by men who robbed and 
maltreated those whom they should have loved and served 
as brothers. To the outcast sinner he was always tender, 
and to such of these as showed desire to forsake their sins 
he spoke words of peace and pardon. To the sinful woman 
who anointed his feet and kissed them weeping, he said, 
"Your sins are forgiven" — she had learned love and was 
"saved." To Zaccheus, eager to make restitution to any 
whom he had wronged, he said, "To-day has salvation 
come to this house" — the grafting tax-gatherer had learned 
social righteousness and so had become a new man. But 
for the proud Pharisee Jesus had only words that sting 
and burn. Forms and creeds were nothing to him; he 
looked straight through them to the reality. 

Jesus summoned all men to the noble life: the life of 
personal purity, of sacrifice of self, of service to others, 
as the one cure for the world's otherwise immedicable ills. 



72 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

He appealed to the heroic strain not wholly lacking in any 
of us. Wickedness was in his eyes nothing else than the 
ignoble life, the self-centered life, and this was the only 
^^heresy" that he recognized. 

The Law came hy Moses, 

But grace and truth by Jesus Christ. (^) 

If we accept the words of Jesus as the guide of life, he 
becomes our Saviour from the theologians, as well as our 
Saviour from sin. For theologians of all ages have, wit- 
tingly or unwittingly, led men back to the Pharisaic notion 
I that right belief is the all-important thing, whereas with 
' Jesus right conduct is all-important. And the theologian 
has justified himself on the ground that belief determines 
conduct, and therefore to have right conduct you must 
first have right belief. Which is true to a degree, but 
leaves unstated this yet more weighty truth: right belief 
may be necessary to right conduct, but is no guarantee of 
right conduct. The belief of the Pharisees T\^as mainly 
right; their conduct was wholly wrong, and so Jesus con- 
demned them. ISTothing can be clearer than that Jesus 
never intended to make ^^salvation," or deliverance from 
moral evil, dependent upon any theory of what he was or 
did. He made it depend on a changed attitude towards 
God and man, and it was his chief mission to be the means 
of so changing the relations of men to God that His will 
should be done upon the earth and thereby His Kingdom 
be established. 

'No, we cannot get away from the fact that Jesus said 
very little about beliefs, that he spoke almost wholly of 
conduct. He made the real test of character, the real 
righteousness, consist in the behavior of men towards their 
fellows. If he does not say it in so many words, he every- 
where implies, that if a man is in right relations to his 
fellows he cannot be in wrong relations to God. And he 
C) John 1:17. 



JESUS TPIE REVEALER OF GOD 73 

does say, in just so many words, that a man cannot be in 
right relation to God, so long as he leaves unrighted a 
wrong done to a fellow. The remedy for injury to a 
fellow man is not prayers and gifts to God — ^what men 
eall piety — but restitution, redress, apology. When David 
had stolen Uriah's wife and murdered her husband, his 
repentance was wholly inadequate when he declared : 

Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned. 
And done this evil in Thy sight. (^) 

That might have answered the ethical demands of an 
earlier time, but Jesus taught a very different ethic : 

So, if you are bringing your gift to the altar, 

And there remember that your brother has something 

against you. 
Leave your gift there before the altar 

And go your way — 
First be reconciled to your brother, 

And then come and offer your gift. (^) 

It is perhaps in his parables that Jesus illustrates most 
clearly, certainly most strikingly, the behavior appropriate 
to members of his Kingdom. The Good Samaritan (^^) 
will instantly occur to every one. Hardly less known is 
the parable of the Sheep and the Goats, (^) wherein the 
ultimate test of character and determination of final des- 
tiny is made to depend on mercy and kindness shown to 
one's fellows in distress. The necessity of cultivating a 
forgiving spirit towards one's brother, instead of a spirit 
of bitterness and revenge, is illustrated in the possibly less 
read parable of the Two Slaves. (^) Even harsh judgment 
of a brother is forbidden ; criticism of a brother's faults is 

(M Ps. 51:4. Of course the ethical question is wholly unaltered 
if the critical view be accepted that David did not write the 
Psalm. 

n Matt. 5:23, 24. 

(») Luke 10:30-37. 

(M Matt. 25:31-40. 

C^) Matt. 23:18-3^. ' ■ 



74 fujs^damentals of chkistiaxity 

reproved with gentle irony ;(^) and as for anger, it is de- 
clared to be equivalent to murder. (^) These are so hard 
lessons for human nature to learn and obey, that Jesus 
repeats them in various forms, again and again ; and on the 
duty of forgiveness, in particular, more stress is laid than 
on any other element of his teaching. He practically makes 
willingness to forgive a test of membership in the King- 
dom: 

If your brother wrongs you, rebuke him^ 

And if he repents^ forgive him. 
And if he wrongs you seven times a day^, 

And seven times a day turns to you and says^ 'Tor- 
^ give/' 
Forgive him !(^) 

For, if you forgive men their trespasses, 

Your Heavenly Father will forgive you also ; 

But if you do not forgive men, 

Neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. (^) 

And that this is no arbitrary decree, any student of the 
teachings of Jesus, who has really tried to walk in his 
ways, well knows. 'No one can receive love who is not 
ready to give love. That was why the sin of Dives was ir- 
reparable — he had refused love to Lazarus, his brother 
who was in poverty and want, and so was incapable of re- 
ceiving God's love. In the parable of the Workers in the 
Vineyard, (^) Jesus teaches his followers what is for them 
perhaps the hardest lesson of all: that they must treat 
men, not according to seeming desert, but according to 
actual want. We mast not ask, What have they done ? 
but, What do they need ? We must give them, not what 
justice requires, but what love prompts ; not the least they 

rTMatt. 7:1-5. 
(2) Matt. 5:21, 22. 
(») Luke 17:4. 
(*) Matt. 6:14, 15. 
(^) Matt. 20:1-16. 



JESUS THE REVEALEE OF GOD 7o 

will accept and our conscience permit, but the most we can 
spare, and even more than we can spare. As we often say, 
but seldom do, we must give until it hurts. How unbusi- 
nesslike! But how divine! For to give men what they 
have earned, or what they seem to us to have deserved, is 
justice — a good thing, but a cold. To give men what they 
have not earned or deserved, yet need, is that greatest thing 
in the world, that godlike thing we call love. And this, 
Jesus said, is the whole of Law and Prophets. It is also 
the whole of his gospel. And it is man's only adequate 
self-expression. 



CHAPTEE IV 
JESUS THE HEEALD OF THE KINGDOM 



Those who account themselves the only ^^orthodox'' Chris- 
tians are usually quite insistent that ministers shall 
^^preach the simple gospel.'' This cant phrase (for such 
it now is) is oftenest on the lips of those who have not 
the slightest idea of what the real ^^gospeF' is. Gospel is 
Good News, the English equivalent of ewYY^^iov , the 
word used in the New Testament documents to denote the 
Message of Jesus and his apostles. The original content 
of that Message is very clear. According to Mark, the 
oldest record that we have of the ministry of Jesus, he 
began his work in Galilee by announcing: 

The time is completed;, 

And the Kingdom of G-od is at hand. 

Eepent and believe in the G-ood N'ews.(^) 

This was the gospel of Jesus : a declaration that the King- 
dom of God was about to be established, and a summons to 
men to "repent'' and "believe" as conditions of membership 
in the Kingdom. In other words, they were to accept the 
Message and relate themselves to it. It was a call to a new 
ideal of life, to a new purpose in life, to a new conduct 
of life. 

And the kernel of the Good News was the immediate 
coming of the Kingdom of God. By this Jesus seems to 
have intended his hearers to understand the world as God's 



(') Mark 1:15. 

76 



JESUS THE HEEALD OF THE KINGDOM iJ 

spiritual empire, a realm on earth with the fundamental 
characteristics of Heaven, a world in which men will be 
godlike. The chief note of Heaven, in the mind of Jesus, 
clearly was that it was a divine realm of ideal perfection, 
because in it God was all in all, and his will was perfectly 
done. The Kingdom of God on earth would be realized 
when God became the dominating influence in the hearts 
and lives of men, when his will is done here as it is in 
Heaven. 

Our word ^^kingdom'' fails to express the idea of Jesus ; 
for, while PacriAeia did originally mean ^^ingdom,'' to 
the generation of Jesus it had come to be the equivalent 
of the Latin imperium, and to mean the Roman Empire, 
an authority conterminous with the world itself. There 
could be, in the nature of the case, but one such universal 
imperium, in the sense of a visible government, with an 
Imperator at its head, divided into provinces, each with 
its administrator responsible to the Emperor ; and its great 
army, distributed into legions, all absolutely loyal to the 
Imperator or commander-in-chief. But there could be 
alongside of this political and military imperium, and 
conflicting with it not at all, because moving in a totally 
different sphere, a religious or ^^spiritual" Empire, as vast, 
as perfectly organized, as loyal to its Head. But the 
words of Jesus nowhere afford us a hint that he had any 
conception of a Kingdom like that. He never describes 
the Kingdom of God in terms that can be stretched to 
cover such a conception. That was a notion of the King- 
dom that came to prevail among Christians in consequence 
of Imperial favor, after Constantino and his successors had 
made the Holy Catholic Church both in form and spirit a 
more or less religious counterpart of the political institu- 
tions of the Roman State. 

Jesus used the word that he found on the lips of all men, 
because it was the only word available. If a religious 
teacher is to make himself understood at all, he must con- 



78 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

form to the speech of his day. He may indeed introduce 
a few new words^ or he may try to give a deeper signifi- 
cance to commonplace words^ and in either case he takes 
the risk of being misunderstood. Nothing is plainer from 
the Gospels than that^ in this matter of the Kingdom, Jesus 
shot over the heads of his entire generation. True, his 
hearers hung upon his lips. They remembered many say- 
ings with wonderful accuracy. In due time they wrote 
down his words and passed them on to others. But they 
misunderstood, with unanimity and perseverance that one 
refrains from calling perversity only because they so evi- 
dently could not help themselves. Their misunderstanding 
was as honest as it was tragic. 

For the mind of the Jew was then full of an idea of the 
Kingdom of God that he derived from the Empire under 
which he lived. He was more than he realized under the 
spell of that tremendous institution, the like of which had 
never been known before. The ^ ^Empires" of Egypt and 
Babylonia, of Assyria and Persia, and even that of the 
great Alexander, had been limited and ephemeral things to 
which it was a joke to apply the name imperium. But 
here was an authority extending to the very confines of 
civilization, with common laws, institutions, language. 
There seemed every reason why it should endure forever. 
No forces were visible or computable by ordinary human 
foresight that could smash this vast military, legal and 
social organization. And as matter of fact, it did endure 
through fourteen centuries thereafter. Nothing else human 
and mundane has so nearly deserved the oft-applied epi- 
thets, "perpetual'' and "eternal.'' 

It is rather common to say that the Jew hated the 
Roman Empire. It might be more exact to say that the 
Jew hated the Roman, not the Empire. A universal 
imperium of which Jerusalem should be the centre, the 
power of which should be wielded by a Son of David, was 
his dearest dream — that ^asion summed up his ideas of 



JESUS THE HEEALD OF THE Ki:>^GDOM 79 

human felicity and glory. So much admiration did the 
Eoman Empire exact from those who unwillingly sub- 
mitted to it. So completely as this did it dominate their 
thought and imagination. The Jew translated the King- \ 
dom of God into terms of this visible organization. 

It was to a generation with mind preoccupied by such 
an ideal that Jesus vainly tried to communicate his ideal 
of a Kingdom of spirit. He said again and again, to men 
as unreceptive as blocks of wood, things like these: 

The Kingdom of G-od is not coming so that you can 
see it^ 
Kor will men say, ^^Here it is V^ or "There it is V^ 
For the Kingdom of God is within you.(^) 

Jesus could not hope, so far as we can see, to get on with 
his hearers save by using the accepted word, but the 
moment be uttered it their minds were obsessed by the 
phantasy of an empire of this world. It was the only word 
available, for there were no alternatives that his hearers 
could have understood better. There were then no repub- | 
lies, still more no democracies. The old Roman res jntblica 
had perished, and the Greek ^^democracies" w^ere never 
democratic, for they were founded on the economic basis 
of slavery. But it is notable that, though he uses the word 
Kingdom, Jesus never describes his ideal as a monarchy, ' 
but as a commonwealth, a democracy. The Kingdom is a 
state of equality, of brotherhood, of mutual service. There 
can be no aristocracy in it ; no one can claim to be greater 
than his fellows : 

You know that those considered rulers among the heathen 

lord it over them, 
And their great men exercise authority over them : 

It will not be so among you. 
So, whoever of you wishes to become first, 

Let him be slave of all!(-) 



(M Or "among vou/' Luke 17:20, 21. 
(2) Matt. 20:25-27: Luke 22:25. 20. 



80 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The Kingdom of Qod,(^) in other words, is a social order 
dominated in all the relations of men with each other by 
the spirit that God shows in his dealings with ns — the 
spirit of love, of universal good will, shown by each to 
each. In the Kingdom good will is to conquer hatred, 
trust is to take the place of fear, mutual helpfulness will 
be found instead of strife. Cooperation will supplant 
competition, service will be the standard of greatness, and 
the chief reward will be neither honor nor wealth, but the 
consciousness of having done one's best for the common 
welfare. 

II 

^^Eepent and believe in the Kingdom of God," was the 
Good News of Jesus. But theologians have read into these 
words meanings of which he never dreamed, as well as 
read out of them all the meaning that he put there, until 
a positive perversion of his ^^simple gospeF' has resulted. 
^^Eepent" and ^^repentance'^ are the English words long 
ago chosen to render the Greek \isxavoioy, [istdvoia. 
We must evacuate the words of theological subtleties and 
get back to the meaning that they had for Jesus and his 
generation. The words are not very common in classical 

(^) This is the phrase used by Mark thirteen times and by Luke 
thirty-three times, while Matthew uses it only five times, in all 
other cases (twenty-four) preferring Kingdom of Heaven (lit. of 
the heavens). The word Paai^sia occurs fifty-six times in Matthew, 
and of these cases it is attributed to Jesus forty-nine times 
in direct quotation, besides twice in indirect. This is character- 
istic of the Synoptics generally. But in John the word occurs 
but four times, in every instance in words credited to Jesus himself. 
To those who really wish to understand the teaching of Jesus re- 
garding the Kingdom, a little book by F. Herbert Stead is worth 
its weight in gold. It is an inductive study of the Gospels, and as 
a result this definition is formulated: "The Kingdom of God is the 
fellowship of souls divine and human, of which the law and the 
life are love, wherein the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood 
of man, as both are embodied in Jesus the Christ, are recognized 
and realized." (Edinburgh, T & T Clark. "Bible Class Primers'',) 



JEStTS THE HEBALB OF THE KINGDOM 81 

Greek, but when used they always denote a change of opin- 
ion or purpose. A sober second thought often leads a man 
to change his first opinion, or to do something other than 
he at first intended. It is this fact of change that is the 
fundamental meaning of these words. 

It is in this sense that Jesus always uses them, and 
throughout the New Testament there is no apparent varia- 
tion from his usage. When a man perceives his past mis- 
deeds and determines to change his conduct and lead a dif- 
ferent life, he ^^repents" in the Gospel sense. The prodi- 
gal, when he ^^came to himself" and became convinced of 
his folly, resolved, ^T will rise and go to my father," and 
that was his ^^repentance." So every man through ^^re- 
pentance" finds himself and becomes a new man in his at- 
titude towards God and his fellows. He becomes ready to 
do his part in reorganizing the social order on the basis of 
brotherhood. He becomes a member of the Kingdom of 
God. 

With such a change of mind and purpose often goes an 
abhorrence of the past life, a new sense of the meaning 
of moral obliquity, which theologians have called "convic- 
tion of sin." But this emotional accompaniment of the 
change is of no ethical value in itself; it may even exist 
without repentance, or change of mind and purpose, in 
which case we call it remorse. Repentance is nothing else 
than change of ethical perception, change of attitude, 
change of conduct, all resulting ultimately in change of 
character. It is a deliberate facing about and going in 
the opposite direction. It amounts to an ethical revolu- 
tion. It is the birth of a new man. It may be preceded 
by experiences of greatly various kinds, by moral turpitude 
of different degrees; it may be accompanied by great 
spiritual disturbances or may be without marked emotional 
quality. All these are trifling considerations: the real 
thing, the only thing of moment, is the change. 

Jesus treats this change as something within the power 



S2 ITTNDAMEKTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

of every man's will : he assumes that any man can, if he 
chooses, turn about and amend his life. And so every 
man is summoned to do just this. He has hitherto lived 
the life of selfhood: he must henceforth live the life of 
brotherhood. He has hitherto been absorbed in schemes 
for promoting his own advantage ; he must henceforth seek 
first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness. His en- 
tire plan of life must be revised and new ideals must take 
the place of old. 

But it should not be inferred, because repentance is so 
plain and simple a matter, that Jesus thought it an easy 
thing, a change requiring little or no effort. Quite the 
contrary. He clearly recognized that God will not, be- 
cause he cannot, save a man who will not "agonize," strive 
as an athlete for victoiy, to enter the narrow gate that 
leads to eternal life. To be a follower of Jesus is not for 
the lazy, the indifferent, the cowardly, the mentally limp, 
the quitters ; it demands an alert mind, a well-braced will ; 
it offers opportunities for all that may be in us of the 
heroic, the aspiring, the intrepid, the enduring. 

^^Master/^ said another^ ^^I will follow you, but permit me 
first to bid farewell to my friends at home.^^ 

^^No man,^^ replied Jesus, ^Vho has put his hand to the 
plough and looks at things behind, is fit for the Kingdom of 
God.^^(^) 

If any man would come after me, 

Let him take up his cross and follow me. 

For he that would save his life will lose it. 

But he that loses his life for my sake will find it. 

For what good will it do a man to gain the whole world. 
But lose his own life? 

Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?(^) 



(^) Luke 9:61, 62. 

( = ) Matt. 16:24-26; Mark 8:34-37; Luke 9:23-25. 



JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 8o 

Modem evangelism, based upon the false interpretation 
of theologians, has made ^^repentance" an adjunct of what 
they call ^^conversion/' the chief end of which is supposed 
to be to secure a sinner's deliverance from God's wrath and 
condemnation and the consequent danger of eternal punish- 
ment. The accepted test of a ^^conversion" is an emotional 
^'experience/' the stages of which are: first, ^^conviction 
of sin," second, ^^repentance," and third, ^^faith," all of 
which results in the joyful assurance of sins forgiven. 
Lack of any one of these elements used to be regarded 
as invalidating the "experience" ; and though judgment is 
now more lenient, this is still regarded as the normal type. 

But an emotional crisis is no proof of change of char- 
acter. The fact that a man has a firm conviction that his 
sins have been forgiven — that he is "saved" — is not ade- 
quate proof of God's forgiveness; he may be altogether 
deluded about his standing with God. The real proof of 
forgiveness of his sins is the man's attitude towards them ; 
for the only sins that God forgives are the sins that man 
has forsaken and hated. The convincing proof of conver- 
sion is not an inward experience, but an outward and 
visible alteration of conduct. 

Christian history has shown all forms of "experience" 
to be only too often wholly illusory. The 'New Testament 
writings nowhere propose an emotional test of Christian 
character. The apostles and Jesus are at one on this point, 
as perhaps they are not on any other: the reality of the 
Christian life is to be tested, not by subjective emotion, 
but by objective fact — the tree is to be known by its 
fruits, that is, by conduct. Does an alleged conversion 
make a complete change in a man's life, so as to show that 
he is ruled by new ideals ? May he be judged on the basis 
of what he is and does to be a man reborn ? Does he show 
by word and deed that he has renounced self and is living 
the life of brotherhood? Is he plainly seeking first the 
Kingdom and its righteousness — the reig'ii of justice, 



84 FUNDAMEISTTALS OF CHRISTIAIN^ITY 

mercy and peace in this world — and is lie doing what he 
may to make this ideal a reality? "Never mind how he 
feels; what is he doing? 

j^othing so clearly emerges fromi the present condition 
of our ^"evangelical'' churches as this damning fact : these 
emotional ^^conversions" do not result in the kind of re- 
pentance that Jesus demanded. Our churches are full of 
people^ as every candid pastor will sorrowfully admit in 
private, though he might not care to say it in public, who 
give no slightest indication of changed attitude or pur- 
pose. Some, it is true, are changed in the sense of better 
individualistic ethics, but that is all. The ^^converted" 
man curbs some of his former vices, perhaps, but he goes 
right on in his old life of selfhood, without any notion 
that his life calls for amendment or change. In religious 
meetings he talks about ^^love" and ^^brotherhood," while 
in his daily business he practices all the ruthlessness of 
the Hun. Thousands of such ^^conversions" bring the 
Kingdom no nearer. How should they? They have no 
relation to the Kingdom and are not in sight of its ideals. 
The churches will utterly fail to achieve their declared 
purpose until there is complete reform of methods and 
standards. 

It is the theological perversion of ^^repentance" that 
has so disastrously promoted the exaggerated individualism 
of Protestant Christianity, and all but caused men to 
forget the social implications of the gospel. On the lips 
of Jesus, Kingdom of God and ^^eternal life" are synony- 
mous. He did not teach men to flee from the world, but 
to overcome it. The main idea of his gospel was not a 
personal deliverance from sin and the individual's attain- 
ment of peace and happiness here and hereafter, as the 
immediate end to be sought. His goal was the salvation 
of the world, of society, as the only way to save the in- 
dividual — ^the deliverance of all men, not merely a chosen 
few, from a maze of evil conditions that make individual 



JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 85 

transgression inevitable. Religion was not, in his view, a 
force for personal uplift merely, but a social force to be 
felt throughout the complex relationships of life. And it 
is precisely that quality of his teaching that made it so 
unpalatable to his hearers; and it has ever since been so 
unacceptable, that men have devoted themselves chiefly 
to devising excuses for not doing what he demanded they 
should do. For, as has been well remarked, men will 
wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it — 
anything but live for it. 

The popular form "of Protestant religion was never 
more happily expressed than by John Bunyan. His Pil- 
grim, putting his fingers in his ears to shut out every- 
thing but the inner voice urging him to flee from the 
City of Destruction, reckless of the fate of wife and chil- 
dren, with no idea that he owed anything to his fellow- 
citizens, in a passion of selfish fear lest he himself should 
be eternally miserable and ready to sacrific every con- 
sideration of honor and duty if he might thereby secure 
his own eternal happiness — that is the portrait of the ideal 
Christian that John Bunyan gives us. Look on this pic- 
ture and then on that, compare this ideal with the words 
of Jesus, and see how little they agree. There could not 
be a more total or a more fatal perversion of the ideal of 
Jesus. 

The pilgrim's objective in Bunyan's narrative is hope- 
lessly wrong ; our business is not to get ourselves into the 
Celestial City as speedily as we may, regardless of what 
may happen to others, like a man who should rush out of 
a burning house without stopping to see how his wife and 
children were to be rescued, so intent on saving his own 
life as to forget that other lives were to be saved. Our 
business is to make our own city celestial, to bring into it 
and make real all that we can imagine possible of splendor 
and purity and blessedness in Jerusalem the Golden. The 
true story of a Pilgrim's Progress in the twentieth century 



86 PtTl^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

would show him remaining in the City of Destruction and 
striving to make of it a City of Salvation. It would 
picture a man so concerned for the salvation of wife and 
children and neighbors as to lose all thought about his 
own.(/) 

It would sho^v him leading his companions to 
drain the Slough of Despond and batter down the castle 
of Despair about the giant's ears. It would show him 
reforming the abuses of Vanity Fair and making it a place 
of helpful amusement and recreation. And the man who 
did all this would be none the less but rather all the more 
capable of appreciating the view from the top of the De- 
lectable Mountains. 

And theological perversions of ^^believe'^ and "faith'^ 
have been equally disastrous. Since the Reformation and 
the proclamation by Luther of ^^justification by faith 
alone'' as the article of a standing or falling Church, there 
has been a steady drift in the direction of making ^^faith" 
an intellectual process, the acceptance of a body of teach- 
ing, of ecclesiastical dogma, regarding religion. This has 
made orthodoxy of more value than character. Some re- 
ligious bodies have explicitly defined faith as acceptance 
of the historic facts about Jesus and the truth of his teach- 
ing. Even in those religious circles where this definition 
is formally repudiated, and it is insisted that faith is some- 
thing more than intellectual assent, there is a tendency 
too strong to be resisted to make faith mean just this and 
only this. 

But on the lips of Jesus, and throughout the New Testa- 
ment writings, "faith," "believe" denote an act of the will 
rather than of the intellect. It has an intellectual basis, 
as every act of the will has, but the essential thing in 

(*) WiUiam Wilberforce, who spent his life in procuring the eman- 
cipation of slaves in all English domains, was once reproached by a 
good ^^evangelical" woman for showing so little concern for the salva- 
tion of his soul. "Madam," he replied, "I had almost forgotten that 
I had a soul." 



JESUS THE HEKALD OF THE KINGDOM bi 

''faith" is a decision and an act. To "believe in the Good 
News/' as Jesus used the phrase, is to have such confi- 
dence in the gospel as leads to obedience. ^Taith" is 
trust ; not mere assent of the mind, but consent of the will, 
resulting in conduct. It is to have such an attitude towards 
Jesus as the pupil has towards his teacher, as the soldier 
has towards his commander. It is an ethical quality, that 
is influenced by intellectual processes, but still moves in 
another plane. 

To have such faith in the founder of the Kingdom is 
necessary to entrance into it, not because such an arbitrary 
condition of entrance has been imposed, but because with- 
out such trust in Jesus and his teaching nobody would 
make the faintest effort to realize his ideal. Thousands of 
years of professed allegiance to him have hardly advanced 
us a step towards the goal that he proposed; and that is, 
plainly enough, because men have professed allegiance yet 
failed to give it. Their failure is not to be justly con- 
demned, in the majority of cases at least, either as hypoc- 
risy or as deliberate disobedience, but as ignorance. For 
the teachers and leaders of the Christian world have not 
themselves comprehended the ideals of Jesus, and so of 
course could not instruct people regarding them. We 
are just recovering knowledge of the real significance of 
the Master's teaching. 

The humility that Jesus prescribed, equally with trust, 
as a condition of entering the Kingdom, has proved a stone 
of stumbling to many. It is probable that for some time 
to come humility will not be a popular virtue. What we 
are exhorted in these days to do, is to seek all means of 
"self-expression," by which is far too often meant a ruth' 
less esfoism that asserts an inalienable right to live one's 
own life and scorns regard for the lives of others as a 
cramping of personality. But much of the prejudice 
against the teaching of Jesus rests on a misconception of 



88 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

its nature. Perhaps the word ^^modesty" would come 
nearer to conveying the real meaning of Jesus to the pres- 
ent generation. To be humble is not to cringe and sneak, to 
be meek is not to be abject and craven; it is to cultivate a 
modest estimate of self and forbear arrogance, haughtiness 
and bluster. It is the domineering, flaunting, supercilious 
spirit that ^ve are to eschew, for these are anti-social, they 
prevent mutual goodwill. But the Kingdom has no place 
for the timid, the obsequious, the mean-spirited; it is a 
Kingdom of gentlemen and gentlewomen, and all that is 
urbane and companionable, highminded or honorable, 
breathes in this realm its native air. It was because he 
taught such a Kingdom as this that the professed follow- 
ers of Jesus have from the beginning followed him with 
greatest reluctance, and no further than they must; and 
that has proved to be a very little way indeed. It is only 
quite recently that any considerable number of people 
were ready for such a Kingdom as this, saw in it anything 
to be desired, or believed that it was possible to establish 
it. And those people are beginning very seriously to doubt 
whether the realization of the Kingdom is to be hoped 
through the agency of that Church which claims Jesus as 
Founder and Head, notwithstanding it professes to exist 
only for bringing in the Kingdom. For, in spite of loud 
professions and claims of loyalty to Jesus, only in the few- 
est instances can the Christian churches be induced to take 
any serious interest in the Kingdom propaganda, or to 
undertake anything that has a real tendency to hasten the 
Kingdom's coming. Nietzsche thought the Sermon on the 
Mount was ^^doctrine for weaklings,'' but -the difficulty 
with that teaching has always been that men were not 
strong enough to follow it. They have feebly evaded its 
obligations by declaring them impracticable. Jesus is the 
one Superman. 



JESirS THE HEEALD OF THE KIIJ^GDOM 89 

III 

When we interpret ^^tlie Good News of the Kingdom'' 
to mean that Jesus taught a social gospel, we do not imply 
that Jesus was in any sense a professor of Sociology. 
There is no reason to suppose that he held any definite 
scientific theory regarding society, any more than he held 
a definite scientific theory regarding religion. He was 
entirely concerned with the practical aspects of society and 
religion. But he saw, as clearly as any modern professor, 
that society and the individual are mutually related ; that 
each is indispensable to the other, each complements the 
other, each reacts on the other. 

But w'hich should stand first in our thinking, and 
which should we regard as of first practical importance? 
Or should there be no first ? A perfect dualism in thought 
may be possible, but practical dualism is virtually impos- 
sible. In actual life, either the Kingdom or the individual 
will take precedence. The conviction is gaining ground 
that, if we would be true to the ideals of Jesus, we must 
give first place to the Kingdom and not to the individual — 
that the hope of future salvation for the race depends on 
our giving greatly intensified emphasis to the idea of 
social salvation. 

The study of biology has done much in recent years to 
alter our views of the meaning of history and the signifi- 
cance of social institutions, as well as of the method of 
social progress. Our notion of the importance of the in- 
dividual has suffered diminution, and our estimate of the 
value of the species has been correspondingly enlarged. 
Throughout nature it is seen that the individual is of com- 
paratively slight importance; individuals are born, live 
and die, but the species remains. We begin to see a reality 
in what we had come to regard as barren metaphysical 
speculations — that there was truth, though perhaps not 
all the "truth" for which they contended, in the "ideas" 
pf Plato and the "universals" of the schoolmen. We no 



90 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

longer conceive of the species as the mere classification of 
individuals^ but as a separate entity, of which individuals 
are manifestations. It is true that our senses report to us 
only men, yet we refuse to believe that '^man'' is a mere 
figment of the mind, and deny that the only reality is 
that which the senses perceive. This change of mental 
attitude should help us to understand better the insistence 
of Jesus on the supremacy of the Kingdom as compared 
with the individual. 

And just here Anthropology comes forward with its 
contribution. It assures us that religion was, in its earlier 
and cruder forms, essentially a system for securing the 
welfare of the social group, and all its rites and rules had 
as their underlying principle the sacrifice of individual 
interests to social needs. The preservation of the group 
was the paramount necessity, inasmuch as it was the only 
means by which the preservation of the individual could 
be secured. As Kipling puts it, in ''The Law of the 
Jungle,'^ 

The strength of the Pack is the \\o\i. and the strength 
of the Wolf is the Pack. 

Everything else must bend to the one imperious necessity 
of promoting the highest practicable measure of security 
and comfort for all, or there could be no life for any. 
Individualism in religion is a comparatively late develop- 
ment, and has been fully realized only in modern Prot- 
estantism. Jesus recognized the equal claims of social 
and individual interests, so far as these are capable of 
distinction and realization ; he avoided the undue sacrifice 
of the individual to the group, which was the chief defect 
of the early religions, and insisted on the dignity and 
rights of each human soul; he equally avoided the disin- 
tegrating effect that proclaiming the individual's complete 
independence of social obligations inevitably has, by re- 
quiring the voluntary subjection of the individual to the 
social order. He recognized both the individual's right 



JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KIXGDOM 91 

to himself and his duties to his fellows. He established 
a workable equilibrium between two principles hitherto 
antagonistic, fully reconciled them in his thinking and 
teaching, and contemplated the best realization of each in 
his Kingdom. 

IV 

From this conception of the Kingdom as a brotherhood, 
with its implication of equal rights, privileges and oppor- 
tunities for all, come all the sayings of Jesus regarding 
property and wealth. For the members of the Kingdom 
there is no such thing as property, something that is one's 
very own, on which nobody else has any claim. To be- 
come a member of the Kingdom, one must renounce prop- 
erty forever — henceforth one does not own, one adminis- 
ters. The property is the King's; we are his stewards. 
So much has been said of late about ^^stew^ardship," a good 
part of it having nothing but a verbal relation to the teach- 
ing of Jesus, that it is fast becoming a cant w^ord that real 
men and women shun. 

For the Christian ideal that a member of the Kingdom 
holds all that is nominally his as a trust from God, to be 
administered for God, a large part of the Christian world 
is trying hard to substitute the Jewish ideal of the tithe. 
We will compound with God by scrupulously giving him 
a tenth, and then the other nine-tenths will belong to us 
in fee simple. Stewards ? Yes, stewards of a tenth, but 
absolute owners of the rest. When we have given God 
his tenth, he must in justice leave us to the imdisturbed 
enjoyment of what remains — not even our conscience must 
give us a surreptitious twinge. 

Whatever misguided advocates of tithing may intend, 
the practical effect of tithing must be to dry up the springs 
of Christian benevolence. For it substitutes the Jewish 
law of mathematics for the Christian law of love. Not 
to mention that it utterly misconstrues the significance of 



92 FUI^DAMEKTALS OF CHEISTIATsTITY 

the tithe in Jewish history. The later prophets, like Mal- 
achij coming from the priestly class, were pleased to 
represent the tithe as a payment to God, but it was his- 
torically a payment to the tribe of Levi. That tribe did 
not receive an allotment of land, what would have been 
its share being allotted to the other tribes ; and in lieu of 
their share of land, the Levites were to receive a tenth of 
all produce from the other tribes that had received more 
than their just portion. (^) Tithe was really rent, and its 
payment was no gift of God but discharge of a just obli- 
gation to men. The Jew's religious giving began aftei^ he 
had paid his tithe, and is called in the Law ^^offering" or 
^^sacrifice.'' The natural tendency of a priesthood to iden- 
tify itself with its deity explains the later treatment of the 
debt owed the Levites as an obligation to God. Jesus 
says nothing about religious giving by his followers; he 
was not in the least concerned with such questions. But 
Paul, in strict conformity to the principles of his Master, 
puts the matter on the proper basis, and makes all giving 
voluntary, not legal: as God hath prospered him.(^) 

The implications of the Kingdom teaching are far- 
reaching. This universal, redeemed community was to 
be co-extensive with mankind, not limited to Judea and 
the Jews. Because of this ultimate solidarity of God 
and men in a divine community, all men should be de- 
livered from undue anxiety about the future. The fruit- 
fulness of the earth and the toil of men have always pro- 
duced enough for all, and wisely directed labor of all 
might produce immeasurably more. It is not because the 
bounty of God has failed, but because the greed and sel 
fishness of the strong has taken from the weak, that some 
men are choked with luxury while others die of starvation. 
Famine is not God's curse upon the race, but man's curse 
on his fellow. 

rT^um. 18:21-24; Josh. 14:3, 4. 
C) 1 Cor. 16:2. 



JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KINGDOM 93 

And this is why Jesus said that it is impossible for the 
rich to enter his Kingdom. Orthodox exegesis, in its com- 
plicity with those who exploit and its fear of arousing 
their wrath, has found all sorts of explanations but the 
right one of the uncommonly plain and absolutely decisive 
words of Jesus. It has said that riches tend to make the 
heart proud, to absorb the mind in many cares, to lead 
men to worship Mammon rather than God, and other tru- 
isms that throw no light on the teaching, but rather ob- 
scure it with a mass of unmeaning generalities. When in 
fact, the teaching of Jesus is so sharp and clear and un- 
mistakable that it can be misunderstood only by those who 
are determined to misunderstand. Wealth is anti-social. 
Wealth is therefore impossible in the Kingdom of God. 
Because wealth is never the honest result of a man's effort 
as producer, but always the result of exploitation of his 
brother. No man, by any amount of industry and thrift, 
ever accumulated a fortune from the product of his own 
hand and brain — it has never been done in the history of 
the race, and it never can be done. The rich man is rich 
because he has by some means, socially recognized as more 
or less "honest,^' obtained possession of what others have 
produced. No rich man can enter the Kingdom, not be- 
cause Jesus pronounced a fiat of his exclusion, but because 
he has excluded himself by adopting and pursuing a mode 
of life incompatible with the Kingdom. Exploitation is 
irreconcilable with love of the brother as self; it is the 
antipodes of brotherhood. Love of the brother is the law 
of the Kingdom; it is the only law the Kingdom has. 
Wealth and the Kingdom cannot coexist; the rich man has 
worked and lived for himself, and so he cannot belong to 
a brotherhood of love. He must do as the rich young 
man of the gospels was invited to do, renounce his wealth 
and follow Jesus, and he can enter the Kingdom on no 
other terms. 

Wealth is anti-social and unbrotherly, in the same way 
precisely that slavery was. Everybody can see now the 



94 fujn^dame^^tals of Christianity 

essential iniquity of permitting some men to own others, 
in order that the owners might live by the labor of the 
owned. That form of exploitation has come to be in very 
bad odor. But the odor of sanctity still clings to another 
form of exploitation, and we are very slow to see that 
Jesus was right in forbidding men to own things, in order 
that they may live by the labor of others. There are, in 
fact, but two ways of getting a living in this world: by 
doing something or by owning something. The former is 
social and ethical: the latter is anti-social and unethical. 
Any system that permits one man to say to another: ^^You 
shall work and sweat to earn bread and I will eat it with- 
out work," is a more or less modified form of slavery, 
and is absolutely indefensible on ethical grounds. Such 
a system is the negation of the Kingdom that Jesus pro- 
claimed. ^*'A noble heart,'' says Bishop Barrow, "will 
disdain to subsist like a drone on the honey gained by 
others' labor; or like vermin to filch its food from the 
public granary ; or like a shark to prey on the lesser fry ; 
but will one way or another earn his subsistence, for he 
that does not earn can hardly be said to own his daily 
bread." 

Jesus condemns wealth, but he never praises poverty. 
Some of his followers have been less wise and have glori- 
fied poverty in his name. Men like Francis of Assisi have 
believed that they found in a life of indigence great spir- 
itual compensations. But this is to misread both the 
words of Jesus and the facts of life. A few exceptional 
men have been able to live the life of the spirit in spite of 
poverty, but never by means of it ; and only the few, the 
uniquely endowed, have been able to surmount the ob- 
stacles of privation and want, and reach the heights of 
moral excellence. To the many, poverty interposes in- 
surmountable barriers to the higher life. A rather ad- 
vanced stage of wealth is shown by the general experience 
of mankind to be necessary for any community to make 
appreciable ethical and intellectual advance. The Ren-. 



JESUS THE HERALD OF THE KI]N^GDOM 95 

aissance, the age of Louis Quatorze, the Elizabethan period, 
were times of great social prosperity and rapidly increas- 
ing wealth. 

It is quite true that spiritual gifts cannot be directly 
acquired by wealth; millions will not buy intelligence, 
culture, the enjoyment of music, appreciation of art, love 
of literature, a pure mind, a lofty soul. These are acquisi- 
tions of effort, painful, long-continued; each must win 
them for himself. But a certain degree of physical com- 
fort, a certain amount of leisure, are the indispensable 
conditions of winning them. Without community wealth, 
no one could long enjoy bodily vigor, culture, recreation 
and social intercourse. Nothing is more deadly to spir- 
itual interests than continual struggle with grinding pov- 
erty. Money in pocket will not ensure a well-dressed 
man; it only makes him possible; he may be a Eussell 
Saee and elect to go shabby, though possessor of millions ; 
but the man without money has no choice — he must go in 
rags. 

It was individual wealth that Jesus condemned; he 
had nothing to say against community wealth. Com- 
munity wealth means possibility of a worthy life for all, 
but does not make certain that all will live worthily. It 
is an instrument by use of which the higher life is realiz- 
able, a material good through which we may acquire the 
spiritual. Education, art, letters, are the costliest prod- 
ucts of civilization and the most precious. To have them 
in the highest degree of perfection has always required 
great expenditure of wealth. It can never be otherwise; 
in any state of society the best things will be produced at 
heavy cost. But they are worth as much as they cost. 
And their value will be incalculably increased when they 
cease to be the perquisite of the few and become the prop- 
ertv of all. 

What Jesus accomplished for the world was the moral- 
izina: of wealth. He was not an economist, but a prophet; 
he did not teach science but conduct. He marked out the 



96 PUNDAMEI^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

way to the larger production of wealth for the common 
good^ for its juster distribution and nobler use^ not by 
giving us a theory of social progress, but by emphasizing 
the sole practical method by which men may hope to ad- 
vance in social relations: the way of brotherhood, the life 
of the spirit, the selfless life. 



During the lifetime of Jesus his disciples again and 
again showed how completely they had failed to grasp his 
idea of the Kingdom. He took great pains to show them 
how wrong they were and to replace the ideas of their na- 
tion and generation with his own. He seems to have made 
some temporary impression, so far at least that they re- 
membered some of his instructions and afterwards wrote 
them down. But he had hardly expired when they promptly 
reverted to type, re-embraced the ideas from which he had 
temporarily weaned them, and proceeded to establish a 
cult and form an organization differing as much from the 
Kingdom in spirit as in name. Peter's second fall was 
much worse than his first. In the Gospels he is shown us 
in the act of denying his Master's person; in the Acts he 
is shown us in the process of denying his Master's doctrine. 
In the first denial he was conscious of his disloyalty and 
promptly repented; in the second he was not disloyal but 
stupid, a blunderer, and so he remained to the end. 

And Paul was, as he boasted, not a whit behind the very 
chief of the apostles in this matter. Together with Peter 
he made the religion of Jesus the religion of a cult. Jesus 
teaches that men are brothers because they are sons of a 
common Father : Paul teaches that Christians are members 
of each other, because they have become members of a 
mystical Body of Christ. Jesus laid the great stress on his 
ethical teaching ; the aspostles, and Paul above all, lay the 
great stress, almost the whole stress, on the Person and 



jEStJS THE HEEALB OF THE KINGDOM 9? 

Office of the Christ. It is noteworthy that though Jesus 
fully believed himself to be the Messiah, he did not make 
belief in his Messiahship the condition of entrance into 
the Kingdom. Peter and Paul made such belief the con- 
dition of entrance into the Church. 

When the enemies of Jesus crucified him, they did him 
a smaller injury than his disciples did him by perverting 
his teachings. The death of Jesus is not the real tragedy 
of his career, but the denial of all that he had taught. 
The change was so subtly made, that the very men who 
made it were not conscious of what they were doing. And 
the change was so completely made, in a single generation, 
that the publication of the words of Jesus in the Gospels 
found men's minds preoccupied with other ideas and his 
teachings made little impression. The Christians of A, D. 
80, and afterward, supposed that they were following 
closely in the footsteps of their Master, when they had in 
reality cast aside the important part of his instructions, 
and adopted an ideal of life altogether foreign to his. 
It required nineteen centuries after that for men to catch 
sight once more of what Jesus intended and hoped to 
accomplish. 

Men are saying continually, and almost with exultation, 
that Christianity has failed. Why should a religion suc- 
ceed that has never been believed nor practiced ? 



CHAPTEE V 
JESUS THE SAVIOUE OF THE WOKLD 

Jesus is the Greek form of the well-known Hebrew name, 
Jeho-shua, more common in its shortened form, Joshua, 
which means, ^^Jehovah-help,'' or, ^^Jehovah is my deliv- 
erer.'' The name was by no means uncommon among the 
Jews, either before or after the day of Jesus of ISTazareth : 
but everywhere in the New Testament it is implied, if 
not explicitly declared, that his name was generally believed 
by his followers to be not an ordinary cognomen, but 
prophetically descriptive of his mission and work. The 
Greek word of similar meaning was Sorrrjp, Saviour, 
Deliverer. This title was often applied to rulers or gen- 

) erals who were regarded by nations as having effected for 
them some form of deliverance. It is found, for example, 
in inscriptions in Asia Minor, as one of the titles of Au- 
gustus Caesar. When so used, it always implies a state 

1 of captivity, or a ccmdition of great danger, from which 
a people has been rescued. 

We have not only the authority of apostles, but of Jesus 
himself, for saying that he conceived his mission to be 
one of Deliverance for men. ^^The Son of Man is come 
to seek and to save that which was lost."(^) ^^The Son 
of Man came not to destroy men's lives but to save 
them."(^) ^Tor I came not to judge the world but to 
save the world." (^) These are instances in which Jesus 
is said so to have described himself and his work as to 



{') Luke 19:10. 

(^) Luke 9:56; omitted from the text in the Revised Version. 

(^) John 12:47. 

98 



JESUS THE SAYIOUK OF THE WORLD 99 

make his mission of Deliverance its principal feature. But 
this still leaves to be answered the question, What is the 
content of this idea of Deliverance? In what sense and 
to what degree is Jesus the Saviour of the world? There 
have been many answers to this question; some of them 
deserve careful consideration. 



The popular idea of the nature of salvation is vividly 
set forth in ^*^evangelistic" campaigns. Our fathers used 
to talk of salvation by divine grace; we have come to be- 
lieve in salvation by committees and a Tabernacle and an 
'^evangelist.'' These religious mass-meetings, commonly 
known as ^^revivals/' are considered, by the majority of 
Protestant Christians at least, a sort of panacea for all the 
ills of the world. And the Roman Catholics have their 
*^'missions," which are essentially the same thing. To the 
student of religious history, modern revivals seem little 
more than recrudescence of primitive religious orgies, such 
as marked the cult of Dionysius and Cybele, and are found 
among the howling dervishes of today. The violence of 
emotion manifested by their votaries is directly propor- 
tioned to their lack of culture, and rises to climax among 
the unlettered negroes of the South. Religion in bondage 
to the emotions is always extravagant, shallow, ephemeral 
and even dangerous. It often illustrates in the spiritual 
realm the principle of mechanics : action and reaction are 
equal. Nothing can equal the spiritual fervor of a com- 
munity during a revival — except its spiritual deadness 
after the revival is over. There are still a few people sane 
enough to question whether a condition of alternate chills 
and fever is any more salubrious for the soul than for the 
body. 

It may be objected, however, that a revival should be 
considered rather as a means of obtaining salvation than 
as having auy din^ct relation to salvation itself. If wo, 



100 FUl^TDAMElSTTAIvS OF CHEISTIANITY 

accept that view of the case, we may next ask. What is the 
popular idea of salvation that makes possible the revival 
and the evangelist? And the answer must be, that the 
I commonly accepted idea of salvation is, safety and hap- 
piness in another world. Salvation is identified in the 
minds of ordinary folk with ^^going to heaven when yon 
die,'^ just as to be lost means ^'to go to hell.'' Is that the 
idea that Jesus stresses in his teaching? 

N'ot at all. Jesus offered men an immediate Deliver- 
] ance, a salvation for this world, the consequences of which 
would be valid for any and all worlds. This Deliverance 
was to come to men through the Kingdom of God. And 
this positive content of his teaching was balanced by the 
negative idea, what it was to be ^%st." To be lost was to 
stray away from the Father's home and love, and by con- 
sequence to forfeit all that makes life worth living. "What 
shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his 
own soul?"(^) was the reading of our old version; and the 
Christian world came with a unanimity quite remarkable 
to interpret this to mean "fail to obtain eternal happi- 
ness." But we have other translations now, and what is 
more, another idea of this saying of Jesus. "What will 
it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own 
life ?" we read to-day. And we understand by this "life" 
something less speculative and distant than the old inter- 
pretation recognized, something much more immediate and 
I certain and practical, namely, man's entire life, present 
and future, but especially this present life, with all its 
possibilities of making character for the future. It is a 
life of love, that transcends time and death. 

How different from this word of Jesus the preaching 
that seems to find most favor to-day — at least, it draws 
the biggest crowds. "Salvation, salvation! Come and 
be saved !" thunder the Billy Sundays. Saved from what? 
"From the wrath of God," answers the evangelist. But 

rTMark 8:36; Matt. 16:2G; Luke 9:25. 



JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WOELD 101 

this is not the Gospel, it is a relic of Judaism. A divine 
oQY'n correlated with a divine righteousness, is taught 
throughout the Old Testament, and Paul and most of the 
apostles borrowed the thought from that source without 
questioning its truth. But the distinction of Jesus is that 
he rejected this teaching concerning God. According to 
him, it is love that is correlated with righteousness in the 
divine character. The ^*wrath'^ of God can be reconciled 
with his teaching only by so spiritualizing wrath as to 
evaporate all real significance from the word. 

Yes, according to Jesus, there is no wrath of God. God 
is our Father ; he loves us ; he has never ceased to love us, 
all his creatures, the sinful no less than the sinless. His 
love is like the sunlight, like the rain and dew, bestowed 
with equal prodigality on all. The Jews once believed in 
a God who permitted his prophets to send lying oracles, 
and even himself lied to his own prophets on occasion ;(^) 
a God who commanded his chosen people to slaughter all 
the Canaanites;(^) a God who would bless one who dashed 
the babes of an enemy against the stones. (^) But we can- 
not believe in any great Hun in the heavens who have 
learned from Jesus what God is like. The man who wrote 
the seventh Psalm knew no better than to say, ^^God is 
angry with the wicked every day,'' but Jesus knew better, 
and the disciples of Jesus should know better. The older 
religion and ethics of that progressive revelation contained 
in the Bible must be compared with and corrected by that 
highest revelation that God made of himself in Jesus the 
Christ. Others knew God in part; Jesus only had such 
knowledge of the Eternal Father as makes his teaching 
final, the norm of all religion and ethics to his followers. 

(M Thus Elisha, "the man of God/' is said to have sent a lying 
oracle to Benhadad, King of Syria: 2 Kings 8:8, 10 — quite legiti- 
mate in dealing with an enemy. Ezekiel tells us that Jehovah de- 
ceived his own prophets. Eze. 14:19. 

(^) Deut. 20:16-18, and cf. Joshua passim. 

C) Ps. 137:9. 



102 rUXDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAIS'ITY 

"Come and be saved!'' Saved from wh^t? "From hell/' 
says the evangelist. But there is no hell. The popular 
superstition about hell, so far as it is supposed to rest on 
Scripture, rests on a complete misunderstanding. "Hell" 
is the translation in our common English version of two 
Greek words. One of these is 5UQg (Hades) , which 
means simply (as the alternative phrase of the Prayer- 
Book has it) "the place of departed spirits." The other 
word is yiewa (Gehenna), not a place of the future 
world, but a definite place in this world, namely, the 
Valley of Hinnon, a ravine outside the walls of Jerusalem 
where the refuse of the city was burned. Jesus speaks of 
it as the "Gehenna of fire," and further describes it as a 
place "where their worm dieth not and their fire is not 
quenched." That is, since fires were always burning in 
this valley, the place was a fitting symbol of prolonged 
suffering. For Jesus as undoubtedly taught retribution 
in the life to come for sins committed in this life, as he 
undoubtedly taught nothing about "hell" as a place of 
future unending torment. 

The popular imagery of hell and its accompanying 
theological statements are mainly derived from the vision 
of John in the Revelation — the "lake of fire" into which 
he beheld the wicked cast. But it is no more rational to 
suppose that this "lake" has an objective existence, than 
to believe literally in a New Jerusalem whose streets are 
pure gold and its gates single pearls. These are the fig- 
ures of an Oriental writer, of a naturally poetic tempera- 
ment, by aid of which he sought to convey the truth that 
character, good or bad, is the most permanent thing we 
know; that we shall carry with us into the next world 
the character that we form here; that moral evil involves 
consequences imperfectly represented by physical suffer- 
ing, since they are incomparably worse: loss of spiritual 
blessedness, alienation from God and good, that must re- 
main as long as moral evil remains. 



JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 103 

But why should a disciple of Jesus believe, or how can 
he believe if he would, that God's love for his creatures 
ends with the grave ? How can we say, as Jonathan Ed- 
wards and his generation said, that the blessed will look 
down from Heaven on the torments of the damned, not 
with a pity and sympathy that would mar their enjoy- 
ment of eternal felicity, but with a holy joy, seeing in 
these sufferings the crowning glory of God, the vindication 
of his holiness before the universe? That generation 
could not understand that one who could be content with 
his own salvation has no idea of what real salvation con- 
sists. Is'or could it comprehend that one who could rejoice 
over the sufferings of the lost would be himself a fitting 
subject of that damnation dealt out so freely by his theol- 
ogy to others. But our generation can understand that it 
is vain to exhort men in the name of God to forgive their 
enemies, if that same God so hates his enemies as to cast 
them into everlasting fire. We have been shuddering 
much the last few years over the atrocities of war. What 
are the atrocities of war, compared with the atrocities of 
theology ? 

He who maintains that, but for fear of a future hell, 
men would rush into unbridled license, unconsciously be- 
trays his own ethical limitations. He shows himself to be 
convinced that the only successful appeal to men is through 
their selfish fears, possibly because he is secretly con- 
scious that he is himself swayed by selfish impulses, and 
does not believe in his heart of hearts that there are in 
the world any interests worth considering but his own. In 
addition, he indicates that he probably has a low and gross 
idea of pleasures, and in his secret thinking identifies 
pleasure with vice. The man of nobler impulses, of unsel- 
fish aims, who delights in refined pleasures, will not be so 
afraid to trust men as a whole to behave themselves de- 
cently, if the whip of hell is no longer flourished in their 
faces. 



104 FUT^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

A better exegesis of Scripture, a better understanding 
of the nature of God, a better ethic, have together almost 
deprived even the most orthodox of their last hope of 
eternal damnation. 



II 

An idea of salvation differing from this popular notion 
has been held by the ascetics and mystics of all ages. 
Salvation has seemed to them the attainment of ^^holi- 

I ness/^ or the moral perfection of the individual. The 
ascetics proposed to reach this goal, by withdrawal from 
the world and ^^mortification of the flesh" — scourgings, 
fastings, vigils, and the like. The method of the mystics 
was withdrawal from the world and a life of contempla- 
tion. 'No argument is required to show that this is a 
worthier ideal of salvation than that proposed by the 
evangelist. The philosopher and the saint have turned 
their faces towards the light and are moving upward. 
They have done much as ethical teachers of the race. 
Men as widely separated in time and ways of thinking as 
Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius and Bernard of Clairvaux 
have urged this ideal upon men, with no small success. 
But both methods come from the pagan Orient; both are 
egoistic; both are anti-social; both are, therefore, un- 
christian. 

Since this notion of salvation is only a baptized pagan- 
ism — Aristotle's hedonism somewhat spiritualized — we 
cannot expect to find the theory and practice of it among 
Christians much exceeding the best pagan ideals and at- 
tainments. Greek sages found a point of contact between 
this theory of salvation and their racial love of beauty. 

I They thought of beauty as perfection : they conceived it as 
symmetry, balance, proportion, enough of everything, too 
much of nothing. Their first effort to realize this ideal of 
beauty was through form and color; but they discovered 



JESUS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 105 

at length in character and conduct a still higher ideal of 
perfection. There is an inseparable connection, therefore, 
between Greek art and Greek ethics, the aim of both being 
the embodiment of an ideal perfection, of which symmetry 
is the fundamental principle, and the result to %akbv^ 
the beautiful. Art makes its appeal to the soul through 
the senses of sight and hearing; character and conduct 
appeal directly to the spiritual intuition, the inner sense 
of fitness, proportion, beauty. This is why the feeling for 
beauty has in all ages been clearly perceived to be a power- 
ful ally of the forces that make for righteousness; and 
when art and morals become divorced, art becomes lawless 
and life unlovely — as Puritanism once demonstrated. 

The intellectual clarity of the Greeks led them to recog- 
nize danger in egoistic emphasis of moral perfection. 
The Stoics, in particular, strove against this error, with 
a good measure of success. They did much to weaken 
the barriers of class and race feeling, and prepare the 
way for universal brotherhood of men. The Stoics were, 
in truth, not far from the Kingdom of God. The mediae- 
val ascetics and mystics never reached this wideness of 
vision; they went to school rather to the Cynics, whose 
chief distinction was to cherish a proud scorn of pride 
and to find their highest pleasure in contempt of pleas- 
ures. 

The mystical element in modern Christianity gives to it 
much of its spiritual fervor and elevation: yet is at the 
same time one of the chief sources of weakness, since it 
encourages an egoistic, exclusive, Pharisaic type of re- 
ligion. Even granting its point of view as partially true, 
experience convinces most people that perfect keeping of 
the Law is possible only to such as cherish a narrow and 
inadequate conception of the scope of moral Law. To one 
who regards his ethical obli,2:ations in the spirit of the 
Sermon on the Mount, a Pharisaic self-satisfaction be^ 
comes permanently impossible. 



106 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The mystics, however, approached the truth so nearly 
that their missing it becomes a wonder. They held part 
of the truth. They were right in exalting spirit above 
flesh. If the outer life becomes too rich, the inner life 
will not be rich enough. Life does not consist in what 
we possess, but in how we possess it. The mystics were 
right in considering moral perfection as the goal of salva- 
tion. Jesus regarded the Deliverance of the individual 
that he came to effect as nothing less than his restoration 
to wholeness, to ethical normality. Salvation is to have all 
our functions and activities brought into harmony with 
each other, and with the Power that controls and directs 
all things. 'Not merely freedom from sin, but capacity to 
work righteousness, is the promised Deliverance. But a 
man cannot be thus set in harmony vdth himself, without 
being set right with all his fellows. Internal harmony 
cannot exist while external disharmony prevails. Social 
salvation and individual salvation must proceed together, 
and neither can be perfected apart from the other. 

Hence, though individual perfection is the ultimate goal, 
it is not the immediate aim. As St. Ambrose said, ^^We 
heal our own wounds in binding those of others." The 
highest welfare of each man is one tissue with the highest 
welfare of his social group ; and, equally, the highest wel- 
fare of mankind includes the happiness and perfection of 
the individual. But happiness and perfection are subject 
to a law that governs all the highest values : they cannot be 
attained as direct objects of quest, but are by-products of 
the quest for other things. This is the meaning of the say- 
ing, ^^He who seeks his life loses it, but he who loses his 
life finds it.'' Altruism is the only way to social progress, 
but also the only way to individual perfection. This is 
the Great Paradox of Jesus and his profoundest truth. 

For always he taught that salvation is not the quest of 
the individual after his own spiritual good, but strenuous 
endeavor to secure the good of others. In scientific phrase. 



JESUS THE SAVIOUK OF THE WORLD 107 

if he had been acquainted with it, he might have said that 
salvation is not individual but biological, not personal but 
racial, not the rescue of men singly but the rescue of so- 
ciety. Organized religion, the Church and its agencies, 
have up to this time directed effort to the salvation of men 
after the fashion of a fire department, summoned to a 
great conflagration threatening destruction to a whole city, 
that should busy itself with the rescue of a few from this 
house and one or two from that building, but make no 
attempt to put out the fire. Social salvation is putting out 
the fire, in the first |)lace, and then investigating its causes 
with a view to preventing other fires. All experience and 
analogy show the utter futility of the method religion has 
pursued for ages, with the result of bettering the world 
so little that men sincerely wonder if it is not growing 
worse. 

No man can solve the problem of sin for himself alone 
or solve it by himself, nor can he escape by himself from 
sin, because sin is social as well as individual. To make 
possible escape for one, there must be escape for all; we 
are all members of one another, in a profounder sense than 
the apostle realized when he wrote those words. Instead of 
seeking personal salvation, one must seek the salvation of 
his neighbors, and in this social salvation he will find his 
own. To reverse the process, and make his own salvation 
the quest, is to cut oneself off from social salvation and 
make his own impossible. This is to save life and yet lose 
it. The true saint is not the man withdrawn from the 
world, and seeking a purification of self from all evil, but 
the man living in the world who is seeking to make the 
evil good, trying with all his powers to increase the intelli- 
gence, beauty and happiness of the entire social order. 

Ill 

Jesus seemed always more concerned with what hap- 
pens to a man after he is ^^saved'' than with the process. 



108 ru:S^DAME]^TALS OF CHBISTIAXITY 

As compared with the average Christian preacher, and cer- 
tainly as compared with the ^^evangelist/' he might be 
described as saying nothing about the process. It is Life 
that is the great thing in the teaching of Jesus. He does 
not always use the word, but ten-tenths of his words have 
to do with life — that is to say, with living. Usually he 
speaks of tlie Life^ with the emphatic definite article. 
Sometimes he calls it '^eternal" (aeonian, agelong) life. 
The word ^'life'^ occurs often enough in the Synoptics to 
nuirk it as a characteristic of the thought of Jesus, and only 
a little careful reading is needed to convince us that where 
the word does not occur the idea is everywhere present. 
The fourth Gospel was written, according to its author, 
expressly to persuade men to believe (trust) in Jesus and 
so ^^have Life in his Name." Further than this, Jesus is 
represented as declaring this to be his great mission on 
earth : 

I came that they may have Life, 
And may have it abundantly. (^) 

It is this new Life in him, as the result of accepting his 
teaching as the guide of life, the product of personal trust 
in him, that Jesus has in mind continually, as he makes 
plain in all his discourses about the Kingdom. Salvation 
is commonly conceived nowadays as deliverance from di- 
vine condemnation on account of sin. Ever since Mel- 
anchthon, the accepted definition of the ^^gospel" has been 
^^the assurance of forgiveness of sins through faith in 
Jesus Christ." But what Jesus lays stress upon is deliv- 
erance from self and resulting devotion of life to others. 

If any man would come after me, 
Let him renounce self, 
And take up his cross daily, 
And follow me.(^) 



(M John 10:10. 

( = ) Luke 9:23: cf. 12:27; Matt. 10:38; 16:24; Mark 8:34. 



JESUS THE SAVIOUE OF THE WOELD 109 

Whosoever would become great among you 

Will be your servant; 
And whosoever would be first among you 

Will be slave of all. (^) 

Christian moralists have ever found this doctrine of re- 
nunciation a doctrine too hard for them^ and have sought 
by all means in their pov^er to soften the words of Jesus 
and turn them aside from their plain intent. For this 
renunciation of self, they have substituted self-renuncia- 
tion; in place of his unselfishness they exhort us to an 
enlightened selfishness — the sacrifice of a lower good to 
gain a higher. In their desire to make religion easy for 
men, preachers have been tempted to be discreetly silent 
about the yoke and the cross, but Jesus never concealed the 
fact that to be his disciple is the acid test of manhood. 
His idea of the cross, as Euskin says, ^^has been exactly 
reversed by modern Protestantism, which sees in the cross, 
not a furca to which it is to be nailed, but a raft on which 
it, and all its valuable properties, are to be floated into 
Paradise.'' 

The law of renunciation is not popular, but it is im- 
perative. We must deny self or deny God. The result 
of putting this truth into the background is a saltless 
Church, that has lost its antiseptic power — a Church that 
has forgotten the high ideals of its (nominal) Head, and 
has learned to speak the world's language and live the 
world's life ; a Church that puts men's consciences to sleep 
instead of wakening them, that offers men a soft couch in 
place of a cross, that finds it easier to camouflage the 
world's pits of iniquity and misery than to find a remedy 
for them. 

It would have been fortunate, perhaps, if Christian 
people had accustomed themselves to use of another equally 
Scriptural word in place of ^^salvation," namely, redemp- 
tion. Salvation seems to imply chiefly, if not wholly, 

rTMatt. 20:26, 27; cf. 23:11; Mark 9:35; 10:44: Luke 22:26. 



110 FUNDAMEJ^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

rescue from impending danger, while redemption implies 
restoration to a former status. We are saved from some 
thing; we are redeemed to something. Mr. H. G. Wells 
struggles to express a thought like this, when he says. 
^^Eeligion is the development and synthesis of the con- 
flicting and divergent motives of the unconverted, and the 
identification of the individual life with the immortal 
purpose of God."(^) The thought of Mr. Wells suffers 
from his too sophisticated vocabulary. Jesus says the 
same thing and says it much better, because more simply : 

My food is to do the will of Him who sent me. 
And to finish his work. (^) 

And just there we reach the crux of the whole matter: 
what is the will of God ? Christians have always recog- 
nized that doing the divine will is the essence of religion, 
but have given all sorts of answers as to what this will is. 
While always talking about it, they have had for the most 
part only very hazy ideas of what constitutes the purpose 
of God in redemption and have often interpreted the di- 
vine will in terms of their own desires. 

So it has come about that most people who call them- 
selves Christians have scarcely the faintest notion of what 
Jesus taught and required as the fulfilment of God's will. 
They talk vaguely about ^%ading the Christian life,'' by 
which they show how deep-rooted is the Pharisaic concep- 
tion of religion as the avoidance of gross sins and the 
performance of conventional duties. In those inclined to 
be Puritanical, the Christian life appears to be mostly 
avoidance of certain amusements long by common consent 
tabooed. Those who have progressed a little further tell 
us that a Christian must ^^be a good citizen," by which 
they mean that he must obey the laws, pay his taxes with- 
out dodging and vote regularly. O yes ! if he would be 
perfect, he must not evade jury duty. That to be a good 

rT'^God the Invisible King/' p. 94. New York, 1917. 
(-') John 4:34. 



JESUS THE SAVIOUK OF THE WORLD 111 

Christian or a good citizen means anything more than 
these things, Christians in general have no more compre- 
hension than if Jesus had never lived or the Gospels never 
been v^ritten. And it is impossible, or virtually so, to 
induce ^^good^^ Christian people to go beneath these super- 
ficial matters and see that Jesus taught a social gospel, not 
an individualistic — that he was more concerned with the 
salvation of men in society than with men as separate enti- 
ties. This is so far from being understood by the majority 
of Christians that they stare and gasp when such an idea 
is suggested, and at once break forth into indignant de- 
nial. 

Our difficulty in urging forward the Kingdom is almost 
exactly the opposite to that which Jesus experienced. The 
thinking of his generation was less foreign to his ideas 
than the thinking of ours. The coming of the Kingdom 
of God was what the Jew understood to be salvation, the 
Deliverance of his race and nation. ^^Saviour" and ^^Mes- 
siah'' were one to him. The deliverance that he looked 
for was so entirely social and political, especially the latter, 
that Jesus was compelled to stress rather heavily at times 
the idea of individual redemption and insist that it was 
included in any scheme of social redemption. Nicodemus 
found it impossible to comprehend this. He could easily 
understand why great social changes were necessary and 
possible, but why any individual change? Was not he a 
son of Abraham? What more could be asked to make 
any man an heir of the Kingdom ? In our day it is the 
other aspect of truth that demands stress. Men must be 
taught with iteration that not seldom becomes tiresome, 
that a disciple of Jesus is he, and he only, who accepts 
the Kingdom ideal of Jesus and who tries to convert to 
this ideal the society of which he is a part. Only such a 
man has fully experienced the ^'salvation" that Jesus came 
to bring to men. When we all learn to practice social 
righteousness, moral perfection of individuals will come 
almost of itself. 



112 rUXDAMEXTALS OF CHKISTIAXITY 

IV 

Very important in this necessary process of orientation 
is a redefining of terms. Our entire religious vocabulary 
requires to be recast, reinterpreted, recharged with mean- 
ing, to make it fit the idea of salvation taught by Jesus. 
A few specific instances will make j)lain the necessity and 
the method. 

There is no commoner word on our lips than ^^fellow- 
ship/' and none from which the true significance has more 
completely evaporated. ^Tellowship with God" we have 
come to think of as some mystical union of our spirits with 
the Divine, accompanied or followed by some remarkable 
emotional and ethical experiences. But fellowship with 
God is not peace of mind or unity with the divine will or 
any other subjective state; it is wholly an objective thing, 
most practical. Fellowship is partnership. To have fel- 
lowship with God is to become his partner in the great 
enterprise of rescuing the world from the grip of evil. 
In like manner, to have ^^fellowship with Christ's suffer- 
ings," of which Paul writes so eloquently, is not to feel 
sympathetic pangs as we read of his poverty, his loneli- 
ness, his scornful rejection, his agonizing death. It is 
/rather to share actively whatever may be necessary of like 
experiences, in order to be his partners in the glorious en- 
terprise of saving humanity. And ^^Christian fellowship" 
is not merely to cultivate pleasant relations with our fellow- 
Christians and enjoy their society, but to be partners with 
them in carrying on the work of redeeming men for which 
Jesus gave his life. 

A right view of ^^salvation" will give new meaning to 
I another much abused phrase in common use, ^^Christian 
unity." Jesus prayed for a unity of believers; we are 
straining every nerve to bring about a unity of beliefs; 
and we can see no difference between the two ideals. Our 
objective is the wrong one, and we shall never get any- 
where by our present method; or, if we do, we shall get 



jESt^S THE SAViOUife O^ THE WOSLB 113 

somewhere not worth reaching. An irreducible minimum 
of creed, ^^a general union of total dissent/' as Lowell sar- 
castically calls it, if it were possible, would not be worth 
striving after. But we shall have unity of beliefs in 
religion when we have unity of beliefs in politics and 
science and business, or unity of taste in music and paint- 
ing and literature. 

Conventions to discuss unity are futile, because they 
always concentrate on questions of creed, when the real 
issue is a question of deed. The only unity possible or 
desirable is a unity of believers, the willingness of all 
Christians to be one in the prosecution of a common task. 
Such unity must be based, as all social and political unity 
is based, on the principle of inclusion, not of exclusion. 
If a man does not agree with us on the merits of a poem 
or a painting, we do not say that he is no gentleman and 
refuse to dine with him. If a man differs from us about 
the tariff or government ownership of railways we do not 
advocate his expulsion from the United States as an un- 
desirable citizen. We maintain social and political rela- 
tions and cooperation in spite of all such differences. 
Christian unity, like salvation, is social, not intellectual. 
The vague and timid efforts at cooperation in Christian 
enterprises in past years, and the larger cooperation in a 
measure forced upon us by the recent war, point out the 
only possible way of advance. The war did not last long 
enough to form in us a habit of cooperation. Sectarian 
feeling, almost forcibly repressed for a time, showed a 
tendency to react with fresh violence as soon as the war 
pressure was removed. 

"Holiness'^ marks another idea that demands readjust- 
ment to the true conception of salvation. Anything was 
^^holy'^ to the Jew, not because of its ethical character, but 
because it had been set apart to the service of Jehovah. 
We have so emphasized the element of aloofness as to let the 
element of service escape altogether from our idea of hoH- 



* Hi rUXDAMEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ness. Yet service was the principal things the very rela- 
tion that constituted the holiness. We have made for our- 
selves an ideal of holiness that is essentially ascetic and 
egoistic. Our favorite texts with which we have defined 
and defended our ideal have been such as: ^^Come out 
from among them and be ye separate/' (^) and ^^Pure re- 
ligion and undefiled is ... to keep oneself unspotted 
from the world/'^(^) or perhaps^ "A glorious churchy not 
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing." (^) It is evi- 
dent that we must again emphasize service as the chief ele- 
ment of holiness, and get back to the original altruistic 
ideal of the world. Holiness should not mean to us a sel- 
fish withdrawal beyond the infiuence of evil, but a strenu- 
ous confiict with evil. It is not a life of self-exaltation, 
but a life of self-immolation, or self -surrender — a life de- 
voted to realizing the purpose of God in uplifting men out 
of the slough of sin. We must care much more about 
cleaning up the foul places of the world than for keeping 
our own garments immaculate, if we would be really holy. 
^^Christian work'' — is there a more abused phrase in all 
our religious vocabulary? It has come to mean little 
more than getting up bazaars and suppers and other Mrs. 
Jellyby activities, and serving on the numerous commit- 
tees of our much organized churches. Most of the so- 
called ^^Christian work'' of our day is about as valuable 
as the buzzing of flies on a window-pane : there is no end 
of bustle and hustle, but nothing of real value is accom- 
plished. Viewed in the light of delivering men from sin, 
of rescuing society from its manifold evils, of making this 
a better world for men to live in, as a means of making 
better men to live in this world, what could be more 
pathetically childish or more tragically futile than most 
of our ^^Christian work" ? 



('-) 2 Cor. 6:17, quoted from Isa. 52:11. 
(2) Jam. 1:27. 
(») Eph. 5:27. 



CHAPTEE VI 



SAUL THE UEBAN PHAEISEE 
I 

Two facts stand out above all others in the formative pe- 
riod of Saul's life : he was city-bred, and he was rabbi-bred. 
He tells us that he was a native of Tarsus, in the province 
of Oilicia ; ^^no mean city/' as he justifiably boasts, for it 
ranked with Athens and Alexandria as a centre of educa- 
tion and culture, since it rejoiced in a university of the 
first rank and was the home of poets and sages. It re- 
tained this eminence for several centuries, and celebrated 
Fathers of the Church, like Theodore of Mopsuestia and 
Chrysostom, studied there. It is not likely that Saul 
attended the heathen schools of his native town; Jewish 
prejudice would be too strong for that;(^) but he could 
hardly fail to absorb some of the culture of the place, and 
he shows acquaintance with at least one of its poets, Aratus, 
from whom he quoted in his address at Athens the line, 

For of him also we are offspring. 

Of Saul's parentage we know positively only one fact, 
that his father, though a Hebrew, was a Eoman citizen; 
but inferences drawn from this fact are extremely uncer- 
tain, since we do not know how this citizenship was secured. 
Of his extraction, Paul tells us further that he was "of 
the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews." (^) This 
indicates a pride of race in himself and family, from 

O The Palestinian Talmud says: '^Cursed be he who breeds 
swine, and who teaches his son the wisdom of the Greeks." 
(2) Phil. 3:5; Rom. 11:1. 

115 



116 FUXDAME^nTALS of CHRISTIANITY 

which we may fairly infer that his training would be of 
strict Jewish type, beginning in the home and continued 
in the synagogue school. Almost literally from infancy 
he would be taught the Law, both in word and in scrupu- 
lous observance. This theoretic and practical reverence 
for the Law continued to be characteristic of him, so that 
in later years he could say with perfect honesty, no man 
challenging, ^^as to the righteousness that is in the Law, 
blameless.'' 

In his speech to the multitude at Jerusalem, Paul said, 
^^I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in 
this city, taught at the feet of Gamaliel according to the 
strictness of the Law of the fathers, being a zealot for 
God, even as you all are to-day." (^) This implies that 
at an age not later than twelve or thirteen he was sent to 
Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish culture, to complete his 
education. From this fact it seems a tolerably certain 
inference that his family was one of wealth, or at least 
well-to-do; no mere peasant or artisan could have sent his 
son to Jerusalem in this way. Luke tells us incident- 
ally(^) that Paul had a nephew in Jerusalem towards the 
end of his life, and some have inferred that the apostle 
may have had a married sister in the city and lived with 
her while studying the Law. But we do not know that 
his sister was in Jerusalem at any time, as absolutely 
nothing is said about that. 

Like all Jewish boys, Saul was taught a trade, no doubt 
before he left Tarsus, since his trade was tent-making and 
that was a prominent Cilician industry. It included 
weaving the cloth of w^hich tents were made, a heavy can- 
vas made from the long hair of goats, with which the hills 
of that region then abounded. ISTothing can be inferred 
from this as to the wealth or social status of his family, 
for the Jews had a proverb to the effect that ^^he wlio 

(M Acts 22:3. 
(2) Acts 23:16. 



SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 117 

brings up a son without a trade, brings him up to be a 
thief/' His trade was more an anchor to windward than 
a real dependence, though at Thessalonica and Corinth 
Paul found it very serviceable to him, since he was thus 
enabled to support himself while he preached the gospel 
to the people, and so convinced them of his utter disinter- 
estedness — ^as he put it, he sought not theirs but them.(^) 

This, however, was but a little eddy in the main cur- 
rent of the apostle's life. Nothing that we know about 
him warrants us in supposing that he ever had the disci- 
pline of want and sibruggle ; he never enjoyed close contact 
with the soil and the toilers of his world. Easy circum- 
stances and a habit more studious than active may be 
assumed during the pre-christian years of his life. His 
associations were with those who think rather than Avith 
those that do, and in spite of his trade he was scholar and 
not artisan. A youth in which the bitter pinch of poverty 
was unknown, association during his growing years with 
the best people of his day and nation, the unconscious 
effect on his character of experiences in the life of two 
great cities, may be traced in all Paul's writings. His 
trade counted for so little in his life that he barely refers 
to it by way of illustration. The most conspicuous in- 
stance is, ^Tor if the earthly house of our tabernacle 
(tent) be dissolved, we have a dwelling from God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens." (^) It is 
superfluous to dwell further on the contrast between him 
and Jesus in their youth and breeding. 

The ambition of Saul and his family was evidently that 
he might himself become a famous rabbi, and so he Avould 
give himself to study with all zeal. We can get a tolerably 
clear idea of the instruction in the school of Gamaliel. 
The curriculum, as we should say, consisted almost wholly 
of the Law, by which was then meant, first of all, the com- 

pTs Cor. 12:14. 
C) 2 Cor. 5:1. 



118 PUIS^DAMEIsTTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

mitting to memory of the text of the Pentateuch^ and fol- 
lowing that a like memorizing of the comments handed 
down from rabbi to rabbi, that were eventually reduced to 
writing in the Talmud. Such education does not deserve 
the name of culture, hardly that of intellectual discipline. 
It was almost purely an exercise of memory, with little 
to develop the judgment or reasoning powers. Anything 
like imagination, coordination, initiative, was repressed 
rather than encouraged. 

This is most apparent when we consider the rabbinic 
method of interpreting the Law that was so zealously 
studied. A curious combination of slavish literalism and 
free allegorizing was the Jewish exegesis, which resulted 
on the one hand in those glosses so characteristic of the 
Pharisees, and on the other in a kind of ^^spiritualizing"' 
of the most prosaic texts which made them mean whatever 
the interpreter desired them to mean. Paul tells us that 
he was not only a Pharisee but a son of Pharisees, (^) so 
it is nowise surprising that he acquired in the school of 
Gamaliel, and never lost, a full faith in the rabbinic ideals 
and methods, and continued to practice as a Christian what 
he had learned as a Jew. 

'Not only was the early life of Saul such, but his con- 
version made little change in his external conditions. As 
preacher of the gospel he Avas distinctly urban. So far 
as we know, he never went into the little towns and villages, 
as Jesus did in Galilee, but sought out the large cities of 
the Roman Empire. This was undoubtedly good mis- 
sionary strategy; he could thus find a quicker hearing of 
his message by a larger number of people, than by any 
other method. Good generalship always aims to capture 
the enemy's key positions, and this Paul did when he 
planted strong churches in the principal Roman cities. 
Jesus was an intensive Teacher; Paul was a world evan- 
gelist. 



(^) Acts 23:6. 



SAUL THE URBAN PHAKISEE 119 

It is no impeacliinent of the apostle's judgment, or be- 
littling of his mission, to recognize the fact that the neces- 
sary result of his labors was to keep him all his life in a 
single groove, and in an environment altogether different 
from that of Jesus. To suppose their personalities to be 
unaffected by surroundings so different would be to defy 
all experience and observation. To expect lives so diverse 
to produce a common type of teaching would be silly — a 
sort of silliness of which only some students of the Bible 
appear to be capable, and they merely because they will 
not think about the Bible and its characters as they think 
of other books and men. 

II 

Because Saul was such as we have seen him to be, by 
heredity, environment and training, the writings of Paul 
are what they are: exactly what we should expect from 
one sprung from commercial conditions rather than agri- 
cultural, from the well-to-do middle class and not from 
peasantry or proletariat, bred in cities and given chiefly to 
books and study. If the words of Jesus are redolent of 
the country, those of Paul smell of the city street and the 
student's lamp. The apostle has neither eye nor ear for 
the beauties of nature, he can only hear it groaning and 
travailing together because of man's sin.(^) He can, to 
be sure, appreciate the splendor of the heavens, (^), since 
sun and star shine equally for town and country. But 
could there be greater contrast, in their whole attitude 
towards the world about them, than is afforded by Paul's, 
"Does God then care for oxen?",(^) and the saying of 
Jesus about the sparrows, "Not one of them falls to the 
ground without your Father" ?(*) 

(*) Rom. 8:23. 
(^) 1 Cor. 15:40, 41. 
(=») 1 Cor. 9:9. 
(*) Matt. 10:29. 



120 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAlSriTY 

It is seldom from the country and from nature, there- 
fore, that Paul draws illustrations — that inexhaustible 
fount of Jesus. But even a city-bred man knows a few 
primary facts about agriculture, and so Paul does several 
) times allude to sowing and reaping as analogies of spiritual 
processes. (^) He describes character as ^^fruit of the 
Spirit." (^) We find also single references to a few other 
like matters, as plowing, (^) the grafting of fruit trees, (*) 
planting and watering, (^) and the shepherd's work. (^) 
This about exhausts the apostle's illustrations from nature. 
Unless, indeed, we include in ^^nature" the human body, 
which would not ordinarily be suggested to the mind when 
we speak of nature. 

The body, its members and functions, suggests to Paul 
many illustrations of spiritual truth. On one occasion he 
draws an elaborate parallel between the members that to- 
gether constitute the body and the various gifts and endow- 
ments of the individuals who compose the church. The 
body is not one member, but many, he says, and each is 
indispensable in its place and function. From this he 
concludes that we are all one body in Christ, and so ^^if 
any member suffers all the members suffer with it ; or one 
member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."(') 
He uses the same figure in addressing the Romans, but 
with a slightly different application. To the Corinthians 
he had occasion to insist on the unity of the body, because 
the spirit of disunion was rife among them ; to the Romans 
he emphasizes the importance of each member fulfilling its 
function. As the body has members differing in use, so 
the church has members of varying gifts ; as the efiiciency 
of the body depends on the proper functioning of each 

^) 1 Cor. 3:6-8; 9:7; 2 Cor. 9:6; Gal. 6:8. 
2) Gal. 5:22. 
«) 1 Cor. 9:10. 
*) Rom. 11:17 sq. 
«) 1 Cor. 3:6-9. 
«) 1 Cor. 9:7. 
) 1 Cor. 12:26. 



SAUL THE URBAN PHAEISEE 121 

member, each doing well the thing for which it is fitted, 
so also in the church. (^) 

Writing some years later to the Ephesians, Paul recurs 
to the same figure, but this time to lay emphasis on the 
union of believers with Christ, as the body is united to the 
head, so that through that union and resulting union of 
all parts, the body grows in strength and usefulness. (") 
To the Corinthians again, in another connection he argues 
that this union with Christ as head is the great incentive 
to avoidance of all moral evil, especially of those sexual 
lapses that were so common in heathen society as to affect 
even the Christian brotherhood. (^) That disease should 
suggest analogy with sin would be natural, and the apostle 
represents ungodly teaching and conduct as a ^^gangrene," 
that eats away the flesh. (^) 

How completely Paul's thought was conditioned by his 
urban life, we appreciate more fully when we extend our 
study of his illustrations. They almost uniformly indi- 
cate the city-bred man. Architecture furnished him with 
numerous and striking analogies, as we might expect from 
one whose daily wont it had been to gaze on stately temples 
and palaces. He compares his preaching the gospel where 
others had preceded him to ^^building on another man's 
foundation." (^) The making of character he many times 
likens to the erection of a building — ^^edify" is one of his 
favorite words. As a skilled master-builder, by his preach- 
ing he laid the foundation, Jesus Christ, and on that 
foundation men built : some gold, silver, precious stones ; 
others wood, hay stubble ; but a day would come when fire 
would test the quality of the superstructure. (^) To the 
same intent, but with a slight change of the metaphor, the 

16. 



(1\ 


Rom. 


12:4 sq. 


/2\ 


Eph. 


4:12, 15, 


(3\ 


1 Cor 


6:15-20. 


M\ 


2 Tim 


. 2:17. 


/5\ 


Rom. 


15:20. 


/6\ 


1 Cor. 


3:10-12. 



122 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

apostle likens the entire body of Christians to a Temple, 
built on Christ as corner-stone. (^) More briefly, he says 
to the Corinthians, "We are a Temple of the living 
God/'(^) where the thought may be that each believer is 
a Temple in whom God dwells. 

Next to architecture, the amphitheatre is most fruitful 
of suggestion, if indeed it should not be put first. The 
Greek games, as they would be celebrated in a city like 
Tarsus, and still more at Corinth, seem to have made a 
deep impression on Saul's mind. One cannot resist the 
inference that he had often looked on them, and was hu- 
man enough to enjoy those contests of strength and skill. 
He most frequently refers to the foot-races, and to the 
rigorous training (^) necessary for winning them, as well as 
to the leafy crown that was the victor's reward and held in 
such high esteem. "Every man that contends in the games 
exercises self-control in all things. ISTow they (do this) 
to receive a perishable wrath, but we an imperishable." (*) 
The Christian life he compares to a race, and declares, "I 
press on toward the goal of the prize of the high calling of 
God in Christ Jesus." (^) "You were running well, who 
fouled you," he asks of the fickle Galatians. (^) And he 
reminds his converts that a principle of the games is ap- 
plicable to their new life, one who contends "is not crowned 
unless he contends according to the rules." C^) Contests 
with the cestus also afford the apostle a striking and ef- 
fective illustration: "So do I box, not as one beating the 
air, but I hit my body under the eye and bring it under 
control." (^) INTot asceticism, but mastery of self is the 
apostle's idea. In his first letter to his younger disciple. 



/1\ 


Eph. 2 


:20. 










/2\ 


1 Cor. 


3: 


16, 


17; 


2 Coi 


•. 6:16. 




f ^) 


2 Tim. 


4 


:7, 


8. 








/■4\ 


1 Cor. 


9: 


25. 










/5\ 


Gal. 2 


2 


Phil. 


3:14; 


2 Thess. 


3 


/6\ 


Gal. 5 


:7. 












/7\ 


2 Tim 


2 


:5. 










/8) 


1 Cor. 


9 


26, 


27 









SAUL THE UEBAN PHARISEE 123 

Timothy, lie exhorts to contend well as an athlete. (^) And 
when his own life was fast drawing to a close, he summed 
it all up in the words, ^^I have contended in the noble con- 
test" — which is quite spoiled and meaningless in our ordi- 
nary English version of ^^I have fought the good fight." (^) 

Of those deadlier contests in the arena, in which Chris- 
tians were pitted against wild beasts, Paul was doubtless 
never an eye-witness, at least never a willing witness. But 
though he knew of them only by hearsay, he nevertheless 
makes two references to them. The first is of a general 
character, when he speaks of all the apostles, including of 
course himself, as ^^men doomed to death . . . made a 
spectacle to the world, both to angels and men."(^) In 
the other case the reference is usually thought to be merely 
figurative, expressive of the writer's vivid sense of the 
mortal combat he had waged with heathenism in one of 
its strongholds: ^^What would it profit me if, humanly 
speaking, I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus?"(*) 

But the favorite source of illustration for Paul is the 
law, both Jewish and Roman. In the former he might be 
called an expert, and with the latter he had much more 
than a casual acquaintance. Many of his allusions have 
to do with general principles of equity, that find recogni- 
tion and enforcement in all codes, ancient and modern. 
Among these may be placed his frequent references to the 
law of inheritance. In his letter to the Galatians he com- 
pares the state of the Jews under the Law to a minor who 
is under guardians until he comes of age, when he enters 
into possession of his inheritance. (^) Again, he reminds 
them that a son of a slave cannot be an heir when there 
is a son of a freewoman, and Christians are sons of the 
freewoman. Often he informs his readers that they are 

^1 Tim. 6:12. 
-') 2 Tim. 4:7. 
'') 1 Cor. 4:9. 
*) 1 Cor. 15:32. 
«) Gal. 4:1, 2. 



124 FUNBAMEKTAL.S OF CHBISTIAjSTITY 

children of God^ and as such are his heirs^ co-heirs with 
Christy (^) and gentiles are co-heirs with Jews.(^) The 
kindred law of adoption suggests to the apostle another 
illustration of our new relation to God as believers in 
his Son: we become sons of God by adoption. (^) The 
law of marriage, as distinguished from the status, aflfords 
several illustrations. Both Jewish and Roman law gave 
complete control of the wife to the husband; so Paul 
says, ^^a husband is head of the wife as also Christ is of 
the Church. ''(^) By most legal codes a wife is freed from 
the bond of matrimony by the death of her husband and is 
permitted to marry again if she chooses. The apostle finds 
in this an analogy to our being made free from the Law 
by the death of Christ. (') 

Paul was student and preacher, but enough man of 
affairs to draw some of his illustrations from business 
and social transactions. Death he describes as "the wages 
of sin";(^) he exhorts Christians to keep out of debt, 
"Owe no man anything, save to love one another" ;(') and 
to "buy up the opportunity", (^) as a shrewd merchant 
buys goods when they are cheap. Many times the apostle 
compares himself and his fellows to stewards — "We are 
stewards of the mysteries of God" — and at the same time 
points out, as the explanation and defence of his zeal, that 
the first duty of a steward is the faithful discharge of his 
trust. (^) The privileges of Roman citizenship suggest a 
passing allusion to the much greater joys and privileges of 
the believer, "Our citizenship is in the Heavens." (^^) 

1) Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:7. 

2) Eph. 3:6. 

3) Rom. 8:3, 23; 9:4. 
*) Eph. 5:23. 
^) Rom. 7:1-3. 
') Rom. 6:23. 
') Rom. 13:8. 
8) Eph. 5:16; Col. 4:5. 
«) 1 Cor. 4:1, 2; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:25. 

(^<>) Phil. 3:20. 



SAUL THE UEBAISr PHARISEE 125 

Though he was by no means deficient in manly spirit, 
perhaps nobody would think of calling Paul a warlike 
man. Yet circumstances had made him very familiar with 
Roman soldiers and their discipline and arms, and these 
often furnish him an apposite illustration. ^^War the 
good warfare" he exhorts Timothy. (') One of the best 
known passages in his letters is his elaborate series of 
analogies between the ^^panoply" or complete armor of the 
soldier and the Christian virtues. ^^Stand/' he says to the 
EphesianSj ^^having belted your loins with truth, and hav- 
ing put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having 
shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 
in addition to all having taken on the shield of faith 
. . . and receive the helmet of salvation, and the sword 
of the Spirit.'' (^) Less elaborately, but to the same gen- 
eral eifect, he writes to the Thessalonians.(^) He speaks 
to the Corinthians of ^^armor of righteousness on the right 
hand and on the left/'(^) i.e. sword and shield; but re- 
minds his readers that the weapons of Christian warfare 
are spiritual, not material. (^) He argues that as a soldier 
does not serve at his o^vn charges, so apostles and other 
Christian workers are entitled to support ;(^) and again, as 
a soldier does not engage in business outside of his war- 
fare, so as to give an undivided heart and service, so 
must the Christian do.(^) In quick flash of metaphor 
he alludes to the trumpet that sounds the onset, (^) the tri- 
umph that follows victory, (^) and the garrisons in time of 
peace. (^^) 



1) 1 Tim. 1:18. 

2) Eph, 6:11. 

«) 1 Thess. 5:8. 

*) 2 Cor. 6:7. 

^) 2 Cor. 10:4. 

«) 1 Cor. 9:7. 

') 2 Tim. 2:4. 

») 1 Cor. 14:8. 

») 2 Cor. 2:14-16: Col. 2; 15, 

{'') Phil. 4;7, 



126 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Family life and occupations^ which figure so largely in 
the words of Jesus^ find but small place in the writings of 
Paul. He speaks of various household utensils in a single 
passage,(^) and of musical instruments in another. (^) 
The relationships of husband and wife^ parents and chil- 
dren, freemen and slaves, suggest spiritual analogies, but 
these are of the most conventional type and without much 
straining cannot be regarded as distinctive features in the 
Pauline writings. The apostle writes almost as one who 
had never known a home and home life. His exile for so 
many years in Jerusalem, apart from kindred, may in 
some measure account for this strange lack in his letters. 

Ill 

Wit and humor are as conspicuous for their absence 
from the writings of Paul as for their presence in the say- 
ings of Jesus. The apostle was what is commonly called 
'^a serious minded man,'' a phrase that usually stamps 
those that use it as unable to distinguish between the 
seriousness of the genuine humorist and the frivolity of 
the habitual joker. The one thing that might pass for wit 
is the occasional pointed antithesis of clauses or sentences. 
A good example is, ^Tor the good that I wish, I do not; 
but the evil that I Avisli not, that I practice." (^) This is 
certainly wit of a very mild type. Occasionally anti- 
thesis amounts to paradox, ^^But the foolishness of God is 
wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger 
than men.''(^) And is not this a case of rather rare 
hyperbole? ^^Howbeit, in the church I had rather speak 
five words with my understanding, that I might in- 
struct others also, than ten thousand words in a foreign 
language.'' (^) 



/1\ 


2 Tim. 


2:20, 


21. 


/2\ 


1 Cor. 


14:7. 




(") 


Rom. / 


^20. 




/4\ 


1 Cor. 


1:25. 




/6\ 


1 Cor. 


14:19. 





SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 127 

On the infrequent occasions when Paul does permit him- 
self the use of humor, it takes the form of grave irony or 
biting sarcasm. Humor is for him a weapon to be em- 
ployed in emergencies, rather than a habitual way of look- 
ing at men and things. He never plays with an idea or a 
person ; his earnestness is too deadly for that. Such earnest- 
ness is well called "deadlj/^ for it is often fatal, or nearly 
so, to him who possesses it — or is possessed by it. A good 
instance of what is meant by his grave irony is this from 
his second letter to the Corinthians: ^^What is there in 
which you were inferior to the rest of the churches, except 
that I was myself not a burden to you ? Forgive me this 
wrong !'^(^) And again, ^Tor you bear with the foolish 
gladly, being wise."(^) The most extended sample of 
irony in PauFs letters is perhaps that allegory of the body 
and its members, already cited for another purpose. The 
apostle is gently rebuking those Corinthians who were 
puffed up with pride, because they believed themselves 
possessed of exalted spiritual gifts, and so looked down on 
those less favored than themselves : 

The body is not one member but many. If the foot say, 
^Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body/ it is not 
the'refore not of the body. And if the ear say, ^Because I am 
not an eye, I am not of the body/ it is not therefore not of 
the body. If the whole body were an eye, where were the 
hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smell- 
ing? But as it is, God has set the members in the body, 
even as he wished. And if they were all one member, where 
were the body? But now there are many members, but one 
body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, ^I have no need 
of you^; nor again the head to the feet, ^I have no need of 
you.' (3) 

Of the sarcasm that the apostle occasionally uses, this 
is perhaps as good a specimen as any: ^^Man, do you 
reason thus : that judging those who practice such things 

n~2 Cor. 12:13. 
(2) 2 Cor. 11:19. 
C') 1 Cor. 12:12 sq. 



128 FUISTDAMEJSITALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

and doing the same, you will escape God's judgment ?"(^) 
Or this: ^^Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you 
baptized into the name of Paul?"(^) Less severe, but 
still quite unmistakable, is his reply to the brother who 
makes his ^^f aith'^ justification for eating things offered to 
idols, irrespective of the effect of his conduct on others: 
^^Have you faith? Have it to yourself before God. 
Happy is he that does not condemn himself in what he ap- 
proves." (^) Sometimes the apostle begins ironically, but 
warms as he proceeds, and ends with a strong sarcastic 
thrust. Thus to the Corinthians: ^^We are fools for 
Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, 
but you are strong; you are glorious, but we are without 
honor.'^ 



IV 

As to the literary form of Paul's writings, it is for the 
most part the plain sober prose appropriate to correspond- 
ence. His letters, though intended to be read publicly, 
bear no marks of purpose or expectation on his part that 
they would be preserved as contributions to a new col- 
lection of sacred writings. It was a sound instinct, never- 
theless, that led to their preservation, since the qualities 
of the letters that made them valuable for instruction in 
the writer's age have proved to be of equal worth in all 
ages. The saying in the second letter of Peter, whether 
that is the work of the apostle or another, is most judi- 
cious: that there are some things in the letters of ^^our 
beloved brother Paul" that are ^^hard to understand," so 
that the ignorant and unstable use them to their own dam- 
age. (^) And, could the writer have foreseen the course 

(^) Rom. 2:3. 

(2) 1 Cor. 1:13. 

(2) Rom. 14:22. 

(M 2 Pet. 3;15, 16, 



SAUL THE XJifBAN PHAItlSEE 129 

of Christian thought, he might have added that the learned 
and wise would make even worse use of them. It is still 
true, however, that to understand the more important 
parts of them the only requisites are an honest intent and / 
a fair degree of good sense. 

Every Hebrew writer seems to have had in him the 
makings of a poet; and a few times, in moments of spe- 
cial exaltation, Paul breaks into the rhythmical utterance 
of psalmists and prophets. One notable instance is his 
panegyric on love in the first letter to the Corinthians. 
Inasmuch as, in every one of our current versions, the 
poetic character of this passage is disguised, in some by 
being split up into unequal numbered ^Verses," and in all 
by being printed as plain prose, it may be pardonable to 
give it a literary form that indicates its real character : 

Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, 

But have not Love, 
I am become a brazen trumpet or clanging cymbal. 

And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, 

And know all mysteries and all knowledge. 
And though I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, 

But have not Love, 
I am nothing. 

And though I spend all my property to feed the poor, 

Yea, if I give my body to be burned. 
But have not Love, 
It profits me nothing. 

Love suffers long, is kind; 

Love envies not, Love boasts not herself, is not arrogant, 
Does nothing shameful, seeks not her own. 
Takes no offence, imputes no evil, 
Is not joyful over wrong, 

But is joyful with the truth. 
Overlooks all, trusts all, 
Hopes all, endures all. 
Love never fails. 



130 rUI^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

But if [there be] prophecies, they will be made vain ; 

Or tongues, they will cease, 

Or knowledge, it will be made vain. 
For we know in part and prophecy in part, 

But when the perfect shall come, the partial will be made 
vain. 

When I was a child, I talked like a child, 

I understood like a child, 

I reasoned like a child; 
Now that I have become a man I have renounced the [con- 
duct] of a child. 

For now we behold through a mirror, in shadow. 

But then face to face. 
Jfow I know in part. 

But then I shall know as I have been known. 

So now there remain with us Faith, Hope, Love — these three ; 
But the greatest of these is Love. 

There is one other passage in Paul's writings com- 
parable with this in length and poetic exaltation, at the 
close of the discussion of the resurrection. Here the 
apostle's passion again demands rhythmical expression : 

All flesh is not the same flesh; 

But there is one flesh of men and another of beasts, 
One of birds and another of fish. 
There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, 

But the glory of the heavenly is one, and of the earthly 
another. 

There is one glory of sun, 

And another glory of moon. 

And another glory of stars; 

For star differs from star in glory. (^) 



(^) The poetry of this fine passage is completely spoiled in all Eng- 
lish versions by insistence of translators on ''supplying" (which 
in this case means needlessly inserting) definite articles and other 
words not in the forceful and poetic original, whereby they have 
given us, not Paul, but Paul-and-water. 



SAUL THE UKBAN PHARISEE 131 

And so is the resurrection of the dead : 
It is sown in corruption^ 

It is raised in incorruption ; 
It is sown in dishonor, 

It is raised in glory; 
It is sown in weakness, 

It is raised in power ; 
It is sown a natural bodV;, 

It is raised a spiritual body. 

* ♦ ♦ 

So also it is written : 

The first Adam became a living soul. 
The last Adam a life-giving Spirit. 
But not first is the natural, but the spiritual, 

Then the natural. 
The first man is from the earth, earthly. 
The second man is from Heaven. 
^ ^ ^ 

But this I say, brothers: 
Flesh and blood will not inherit God^s Kingdom, 

Nor will corruption inherit incorruption. 
Lo, I tell you a secret ! 

We shall not all sleep, but all will be changed. 

In a moment, in the wink of an eye, at the last trump. 

For the trumpet will blow, 

And the dead will be raised incorruptible, 

And we shall be changed. 

For this corruptible must put on incorruption 

And this mortal must put on immortality. 
And when this corruptible shall put on incorruption, 

And this mortal shall put on immortality. 
Then will come to pass the word that is written : 
Death has ieen sivallowed up in victory. 
Where is thy sting, Death? 

Where is thy victory, O Death ? 
The sting of death is sin, 

And the power of sin is the Law. 
But to God be thanks, who gives us the victory 
Through our Lord Jesus Christ ! 



132 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIANITY 



The ethics of Paul are such as we should infer from 
our knowledge of his experience. On the surface they 
do not differ materially from those of Jesus; so far as 
they have to do with individual character and conduct 
they may be pronounced practically identical with those 
of Jesus. But the ethics of Jesus are mainly social; 
his point of view is the conduct of those who are mem- 
bers of the Kingdom of God. The ethics of Paul are 
individualistic. There is no social teaching in Paul's 
writings, because he never got the social point of view.(^) 
He virtually tells us nothing about the Kingdom of God, 
because, although he sometimes uses the phrase, he almost 
never uses it in the sense of Jesus. He either leaves the 
w^ords quite imdefined, or else uses in the context words 
that appear to indicate a conception of the Kingdom as 
future and heavenly, not present and earthly. If we 
accept 2 Timothy as genuine, we can hardly avoid the 
conclusion that at the close of his life ^ ^Kingdom" and 
^^heaven" had become synonymous: ^^The Lord will de- 
liver me from every evil work, and will bring me safe to 
his heavenly Kingdom.''(^) 

Jesus was therefore an original ethical teacher, Paul a 
derivative. The maxims of Jesus have been incessantly 
cited through the Christian ages as guides of life, to be 
approved or opposed ; with few exceptions, Paul's maxims 
are seldom mentioned, and those most often cited are mere 
echoes of the words of Jesus. It is not the ethics of Paul 
but the theology, that has been recognized as distinctive. 
No Christian can discuss a theme like sin, or atonement, 

(^) One of the best books in English on the practical teachings of 
Paul is Archibald Alexander's "The Ethics of St. Paul," Glasgow. 
1910. It is instructive to note that while many pages are devoted 
to the apostle's ideas of individual virtue, a single brief paragraph 
quite suffices for an nco.oujxt ai his social and economic ideas (p. 
321). 

(=) 2 Tim. 4:18. 



SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 133 

justification, sanctification, without constant reference to 
Paul. He may agree with the apostle or he may repu- 
diate him ; the one impossible thing is to ignore him. But 
Paul may be entirely ignored in a discussion of Christian 
ethics, for he made no contribution to the subject. 

Even when Paul repeats the ethical teaching of Jesus, 

he sometimes narrows the scope of his Master's words. 
Thus, while he apparently insists as strenuously as Jesus 
on the primacy of love, the effect of love, in his view, is 
the transformation of the individual rather than of the 
world. Still, at his best, he gives us applications of the 
principles of Jesus worthy of the Great Teacher him- 
self. Sucli instances are his cluster of ^^fruits of the 
Spirit,'' (^) and his word to the Ephesians, ''Become kind 
to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as 
also God in Christ forgave you."(^) An entire para- 
graph in his letter to the Romans is of this character: 

"Let your love be sincere. Hate the wrong; cling to the 
right. In brotherly love, be affectionate to one another; 
never flagging in zeal ; fervent in spirit ; serving the Master ; 
rejoicing in your hope ; steadfast in persecution ; persevering 
in prayer ; relieving the wants of Christ^s people ; devoted to 
hospitality. Bless your persecutors — ^bless and never curse. 
Rejoice with those who are rejoicing, and weep with those 
who are weeping. Let the same spirit of sympathy animate 
you all, not a spirit of pride. Be glad to associate with the 
lowly; do not think too highly of yourselves. Never return 
injury for injury. Aim at doing what all men will recognize 
as honorable. If it is possible, as far as it rests with you, 
live peaceaibly with every one. . . . Never be conquered 
by evil, but conquer evil with good.'^(^) 

Of like character are many single maxims, such as: 
^T-iOve works no ill to one's neighbor; therefore love is 

{^) Gal. 5:22, 23. 
C) Eph. 4:32; cf. Col. 3:12. 

(*) Rom. 12:9-21. From the Nineteenth Century New Testa- 
ment. 



134 FUiSTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAlSriTY 

the fulfilment of the Law.''(^) ''l^ow we, the strong, ought 
to bear the infirmities of the weak.''(^) 

What we are entitled, therefore, to say of the ethics of 
Paul is not that, on the whole, they are so different from 
those of Jesus in quality, as that they are other in the 
place they take in his thinking. That place is distinctly 
second. What our fathers called ^^the plan of salvation'' 
was always first in his mind. And precisely because ethics 
stood in second place in Paul's thinking, they have always 
been second in his influence upon succeeding generations. 
Paul's is the greatest name in the history of Christianity, 
next to that of Jesus, because of his theology and without 
regard to his ethics. 

Por, as has already been implied, his ethics are not 
uniformly good. ISTobody, for example, can reconcile with 
his own favorite principle of love, still less with the spirit 
of Jesus, that injunction of his to the Corinthians re- 
garding the sinful brother. After admitting that his 
advice or command ^Ho have no social relations" with 
fornicators and idolaters could not be too literally fol- 
lowed, "for in that case you must needs go out of the 
world," he repeats the command, in the case of a 
"brother," a fellow-Christian, who is guilty of any great 
sin, "with such a one, no, not to eat."(^) This does not 
seem to mean, as some have interpreted it, that he is to 
be excluded from formal fellowship — not to eat with him 
ceremonially in the Lord's Supper — ^but that he is to be 
cast out of the community and utterly boycotted. The 
Christian conscience of our age can by no means approve 
that as good ethics. jSTor would enlightened Christians 
of the twentieth century hesitate a single moment to 
condemn as essentially unchristian such advice, if they 
found it outside of what they call Holy Writ. Why not 

(^) Rom. 13; 10. 
( = ) Rom. 15:1. 
(») 1 Cor. 5:11. 



SAUL THE URBAN PHARISEE 135 

have the courage^ then, to say that such words may be 
writ, but are not holy, wherever they occur ? 

JSTor can Paul's instructions about the veiling of women 
and the silence of women in the churches be longer 
regarded as good ethics, at least for our day. The good 
sense of modern Christians has practically blotted those 
words out of our Bibles. Even men whose boast is that 
they ^ ^believe every word of the Bible, from the first 
verse of Genesis to the last of Revelation'' openly ap- 
prove of women addressing large assemblies on religious 
topics. They act precisely as if Paul had never written 
those vrords — which is, of course, the only sensible thing 
to do, though it accords ill with their professions of belief 
in Paul's inspiration and infallibility. For the reasoning 
by which he supports his commands, if it gave them any 
authority when he issued them, gives them permanent 
validity to those who accept the historicity of Genesis. For 
Paul distinctly bases his words on the principle that woman 
is man's natural inferior and subordinate, ( ^ ) created after 
him and for him, and that her spiritual inferiority is 
manifest in the fact that she was first in the great trans- 
gression of Eden.(^) Milton caught Paul's spirit exactly 
when he wrote of Adam and Eve, 

He for God only^ she for God in him. 
We repudiate both Milton and Paul. We no longer be- 
lieve that woman is in any sense man's inferior, or 
that man is in any sense woman's ^^head." We do ncn 
believe that the family is a little despotism, of which 
man is ruler by divine right, and wife and children are 
his obedient subjects. The divine right of husbands has 
gone into the limbo whither the divine right of priests 
and the divine right of kings preceded it. There are no 
^^divine rights" among men. Christianity is the reli- 
gion of democracy, of equal rights for all. 

n"! Cor. 11:1-16; 14:34-36; Tit. 2:5. * 

{-) 1 Tim. 2:11-15. 



136 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

And it is to be further noted that even when Paul's 
ethics are apparently identical with those of Jesus, closer 
scrutiny discloses a fundamental difference. He exhorts 
the Eomans not to seek revenge against those who have 
injured them; but the ground on which he bases his 
exhortation is that God will avenge them ; since he quotes 
(not quite accurately) as his authority from the '^Song 
of Moses" in Deuteronomy, 

Vengeance is mine, and recompense. (^) 

The ground on which Jesus urges men to forego ven- 
geance is precisely the reverse of this — not because God 
will avenge, but because God forgives and we must for- 
give to be like God. 

Of Paul's exegesis of the Old Testament in general 
it must be said that its authority, and often its correct- 
ness, is quite repudiated by the scholarship of our day. 
It is based on the Septuagint, not on the original Hebrew, 
and is such as he learned from Hebrew rabbis, whose in- 
terpretations were often logically as well as grammatically 
unsound, and absurdly allegorical. A crucial case is the 
apostle's argument to the Galatians that the promise to 
Abraham, ^^to him and to his seed," meant Christ, be- 
cause God said ^^seed" and not ^^seeds."(^) But the word 
in the Hebrew, though singular in form is a collective 
noun, like our word "sheep," and may mean one or a 
multitude. The context shows clearly that the promise 
related to all the descendants of Abraham, "and I will 
make thy seed as the dust of the earth." (^) Paul's 
exegesis is not even doubtful; it is quite impossible. On 
the other hand, his allegorizing of the story of Hagar and 
the two children of Abraham(^) is not impossible — it is 
merely absurd. 

(^) Deut. 32:35. 

(=^) Gal. 3:16. 

(«) Gen. 13:16. 

(*) Gal. 4:22-31. 



CHAPTEE VII 
THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 



Paul and Jesus were as unlike in spirit as in heredity 
and environment. 'No two human personalities could well 
be more dissimilar; hardly a single quality, bodily or 
mental, is common to the two. 

The notable thing in the personality of Jesus is the 
exquisite balance of his faculties and qualities. His spirit 
was at once strong and restful; he was masculine with- 
out brutality, gentle without weakness. Normally equable 
and tranquil, without a trace of irritability or impatience, 
he was yet capable of fiery indignation. Yet at the summit 
of his passion he never loses his poise, his sense of pro- 
portion. His speech is calm and measured for the most 
part, yet when occasion demands it can be vitriolic and 
burn into the conscience as no other human speech can. 
He was an idealist, but not a dreamer ; an enthusiast but 
no fanatic. 

The bodily powers of Jesus were as remarkable as the 
spiritual. His vitality is wonderful; he surpassed in 
endurance his disciples, men inured to labor, of excep- 
tional toughness of physique, and though often wearied he 
was never ill. This vitality, no less than his faith in God, 
kept him from discouragement. His clarity of vision is 
surpassed only by his steadfastness of hope. He began each 
day with fresh and exultant spirit. He was the great 
Optimist, an optimist without an illusion, who desired 
all men to share his present joy and coming triumph. He 

137 



138 FUXDAME^TALS OF CHEISTIA^'ITY 

was the one man who wanted nothing for himself, every- 
thing for others. In every respect he seems the normal 
man, a human being raised to the ?7th power. 

In contrast we need not take too literally Paul's iron- 
ical self-depreciation, ^%is bodily presence is weak and 
his speech despicable'' ;(^) but the fact that the people 
of Lystra, supposing them to be gods, called Barnabas 
Jupiter and Paul Mercury, (") is sufficient warrant for the 
conclusion that Paul was by no means of imposing phy- 
sique. And while few have surpassed him in keenness 
I of intellect, he lacked the tem^Deramental balance of Jesus. 
Where the one was conspicuous for poise and power, a 
placid and unruffled spirit, the other stands forth a fiery, 
tempestuous, impulsive, vehement, volcanic nature. 

Jesus was a Seer of God, not a philosophizer about God. 
From an early age he became conscious of a peculiar rela- 
tion to his Father, and his spiritual experiences were an 
iminterrupted process of development, conditioned by this 
consciousness. There was no moral crisis, no ^'conver- 
sion" in his life. He studied the Scriptures, to be sure, 
but as a revelation of his Fathers mind and heart, not as 
a guide to salvation. He did not need the Law whose food 
it was to do his Father's will. 

Paul had no such relation to God, whom he feared 
more than he loved, because he believed (and never ceased 
to believe) that God's wrath is kindled against the evil- 
doer, and he knew himself to be an evil-doer. To him, 
therefore, the Law was an inflexible code, an infallible 
rule of conduct, a means of salvation if its requirements 
could be met. And so he became ^^of the strictest sect of 
the Pharisees," differing from those against whom Jesus 
hurled his fiercest invectives only in possessing greater 
sincerity than they. But he was sincerely wrong, as lie 
came at last to see, and perhaps dimly suspected all along. 

(M 2 Cor. 10:10. 
{') Acts 14:1?.- 



THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 139 

It was entirely in harmony with such a spiritual expe- 
rience and such a theory of life that Saul became a fierce 
persecutor of the Christians. The more doubt he had 
concerning the foundations of his legalism, the more 
urgently he may have sought the punishment of those who 
offered a way of salvation apart from the Law. He 
was probably not the first, and certainly not the last, to 
seek an anodyne for intellectual difficulties in some form 
of activity. There are to-day Christians not a few who 
will tell you that the one best cure for all doubts is to 
engage strenuously in ^^Christian work.'' That may stifle 
doubt, it will never solve it, as Saul found. 

It is not difficult to comprehend the hatred of Sanl 
and his Pharisaic fellows for Jesus and his teachings. 
To the good, pious Jews of his day, Jesus gave apparently 
quite sufficient reason for them to suspect him of hos- 
tility to their religion. It is true that he sometimes said 
that he had come not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil 
it, that is, both to render full obedience to it and to ex- 
pound it in fulness of meaning. Yet how could his con- 
temporaries reconcile this declaration with his conduct 
at other times ? Did he not violate their Sabbath rules and 
justify his conduct? Did he not criticise their feasts and 
sacrifices and set aside their taboos ? Did he not show dis- 
regard for practical piety by eating with unwashed hands, 
and was he not the unashamed associate of those ac- 
counted irreligious and even immoral? If his example 
should be followed, if his teaching and conduct should be 
accepted as the norm, what would become of Judaism and 
its traditions ? 

Jesus had outraged the orthodoxy, he had opposed and 
denounced the plutocracy, of his time. He was under- 
mining both, threatening both with destruction. Under 
guise of completing the old, he was in reality establish- 
ing a new religion and a new social order. Pharisee 
and Sadducee saw this with equal clearness, and for a 



140 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

time forgot their ancient enmity in their common interest 
to crush this innovator. Instead of wondering, as we 
sometimes do, that so much opposition was quickly de- 
veloped against the teaching and person of Jesus, we 
should rather wonder that he was permitted to continue 
his work so long. 

And the disciples of Jesus, after their Master's death, 
had been even more revolutionary in conduct and teach- 
ing. They taught salvation through this crucified Jesus, 
and not through the Law. The course of Paul the apostle 
was the justification of Saul the Pharisee — ^but for one 
thing : Saul was wrong in denying to Jesus the character 
of the Anointed of God, while Paul accepted Jesus as 
such. 

PauFs conversion opened to him a new world of love 
and victorious energy. Up to the very moment of his 
conversion he had believed that Jesus had been justly 
crucified as an impostor. The crucifixion proved to any 
normal Jew that Jesus was not the Messiah — could not be, 
for God's Anointed was to be a conquering King. No 
Messiah could be a suffering malefactor, because God 
would never permit his Anointed, his Vicegerent, to un- 
dergo a death of ignominy. But when Jesus appeared to 
Saul on the way to Damascus, in an instant it became 
clear to the persecuting Pharisee that he had been abso- 
lutely wrong. Jesus, crucified as a malefactor, was alive : 
he was in glory with God; and this Jesus had spoken to 
him. His whole life lay in ruins at his feet. He had 
been fighting against God, even while he supposed him- 
self to be an exceptionally faithful and zealous servant 
of God! There was not so much a change of character 
and purpose wrought in his soul during that fateful hour, 
as a tremendous revulsion of mind and heart against all 
that he had taught and done. As soon as he could orient 
liimself, he amazed his fellow Jews by proclaiming the 
very views he had hitherto tried to suppress, l^aturally. 



THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 141 

they could not understand such tergiversation; to them 
it seemed treason^ betrayal of the religion of their fathers. 

Paul now sought seclusion and the opportunity for 
meditation and study of the Scriptures of his people from 
his new point of view. This was necessary, in order to 
adjust himself to his new life and somehow to reconcile 
his new experience with his old knowledge, so that hn 
might have a definite message to proclaim. ISleither at 
this time nor at any other did he seek information or ad- 
vice from other Christians, and he seems to have taken 
particular pains to keep himself aloof from the Twelve. 
He understood himself to have received a special and in- 
dependent mission from the lips of Jesus, and he was 
always very sensitive about his apostolic authority. He 
was not only outside of the original Twelve, but he wa^ 
not even of the Jerusalem circle, like Barnabas and Mark ; 
and for this reason his apostleship was often challenged 
and he felt obliged to assert it with the greater emphasis. 
^^Am I not an apostle?" he asks the Corinthians; "have 
I not seen Jesus our Lord?"(^) And he reminds the 
Galatians that his apostleship had been recognized by 
the Twelve — "James and Cephas and John, they who 
were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the 
right hands of fellowship." (^) 

Something Paul learned later about the life and work of 
Jesus, but so far as the record shows he made no special 
attempt to do this and was quite satisfied with such 
knowledge as incidentally fell in his way. He was rather 
inclined to depreciate knowledge of Jesus ?^^after the 
flesh." (^) Of all the I^ew Testament writers, he is least 
affected by the personality of Jesus, for the obvious rea- 
son that he never came into contact with his Master. 
It is a heavenly Christ, not the historic Jesus, that pro- 

(^) 1 Cor. 9:1. 

{-) Gal. 2:9. 

(^) See, for example, 2 Cor. 5; 16, 



142 FUIN^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAlSriTY 

foundly influences Paul; and if the only Christian liter- 
ature of the first century now remaining to us were his 
letters, we should know only a few cardinal facts about 
the life and teaching of Jesus — indeed, practically noth- 
ing about the teaching. These letters direct almost ex- 
clusive attention to the death and resurrection of Jesus. 
It is the wo7^h of Jesus, not his words, that is significant 
to Paul. 

The reason is obvious, though it may have been partly 
unconscious: Paul knew as much as any other about 
these themes and could reason about them better than 
most; while, if he should dwell upon the life and teach- 
ings of Jesus, he would necessarily expose himself to 
unfavorable comparison with those who had been daily 
companions of their Master, and knew his words at first 
hand. Possibly the exact truth is, that Paul was not so 
much ignorant of the teaching of Jesus as determined 
to ignore it. The very nature of his apostolate ("as one 
born out of due time'^) virtually compelled this course. 
If he were to vindicate his apostolate as specially be- 
stowed, he must have a special message and be something 
other than a mere echo of the Twelve. And so, in all 
his writings, we seldom or never find him confirming or 
illustrating his own teaching by quoting the words of 
Jesus. His message is indeed '^my gospel.'' (^) 

II 

It should not surprise us, therefore, to discover that 
Paul claims for his teaching a special quality. He says 
that he received it "by revelation," that he "received 
from the Lord," and the like. These assertions have been 
interpreted to mean that, through Paul, Jesus has given 
us teaching that supplements and even overrides his words 
in the Gospels; so that the letters of Paul are primary 

(*) So in Rom. 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim. 2:8; besides three times 
"our" gospel; "the gospel preached by me" (Gal. 1:11), etc. 



THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 148 

authority for Christians. The practical result of this 
interpretation, if not the intended, is to make the words 
of Jesus secondary in importance. In this view of the 
case, Paul is not a religious teacher to be studied as a 
separate personality, but is to be regarded as the organ of 
the glorified Christ, through whom Jesus has given us 
his final message to his Church and the world. We have, 
in reality, two gospels of Jesus: one which he gave the 
world in the days of his flesh, the other spoken through 
the lips of Paul, after he ascended into glory. 

This astounding theory of the relation of Paul to 
Jesus is furthermore declared to be the article of a stand- 
ing or falling Church. (^) Failure to accept it is de- 
nounced as ^^infidelity" and ^^treason.'^ Concerning 
charges like these, one need only say that a theological 
cause must be in a desperate way, when its advocates 
resort to the tactics of children, who, unable to argue 
and afraid to fight, sometimes fancy that they are in- 
juring their adversaries by ^^calling names.'' Let us 
who have become men put away these acts of the child, 
as Paul himself teaches us. Personal abuse is the last 
shift of the weak. 

To the writings of the apostle, then, be our chief appeal. 
To any candid reader of these letters, will they present 
themselves as a second edition, revised and improved, 
of the gospel of Jesus, or as a new and original work? 
The first thing that will strike such a reader, and the 
last thing that will linger in his memory, is the vast 
difference in tone and content between a Gospel and a 
Pauline letter. Paul is silent, or virtually so, about the 
things on which Jesus lays most stress, while on the other 
hand, Jesus does not hint at, or at most only hints at, 
the things that are the burden of Paul's teaching. They 

(^) WiUiam C. Wilkinson, 'Taul and the Kevolt Against Him/' 
Philadelphia, 1914, pp. 45, 48, 69, 241. The lamented death of the 
author, since the above words were w^ritten, does not make tlie criti- 
cism of his views less proper or less necessaiy; his book still lives. 



144 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

move in different planes of thought. They cannot be 
said to contradict each other^ they so seldom meet. 

It may also be pointed out that to assert Paul's im- 
portance, as the unique organ of a new revelation by Jesus, 
is to make for him a claim not only in itself incredible, but 
never made by himself. He makes a different claim, 
not that Jesus always spoke through him, but that the 
Holy Spirit sometimes spoke through him. Sometimes, 
not always. The Holy Spirit, not Jesus. This is not 
mere verbal quibble, sheer pettifogging of the question, 
as every "orthodox'' reader is bound to admit, unless he 
is prepared to evacuate the doctrine of the Trinity of all 
real meaning, in which c^ase he ceases to be "orthodox.'' 
We cannot ignore this real, this vital distinction of the 
Persons in the Godhead, in discussing the teaching of 
Paul. If it is right to say that Jesus spoke through Paul, 
it is right to say that the Father died on the cross. 
Orthodoxy long ago decided that such confusions of the 
persons are inadmissible. According to the whole tenor 
of the 'New Testament, the glorified Jesus does not speak, 
never did speak, through anybody. He spoke to Paul on 
the way to Damascus, but never through him. 

A careful scrutiny of Paul's statements about this 
"revelation" justifies the conclusion that he makes no 
claim to supernatural or abnormal impartation of knowl- 
edge to him. When he speaks of "revelation" he seems 
oftenest to refer to the "appearance" or "manifestation" 
of Jesus to him near Damascus. In other cases, the term 
seems to describe that solid conviction to which he came, 
by aid of the Spirit of God, through meditation and 
study of the Old Testament, that salvation was not to be 
found through works of Law, but by trust in Jesus the 
Christ. That was his "gospel" of which he speaks so 
frequently, the fundamental thesis of his two most the- 
ological letters, those addressed to the Galatians and 
Romans. "Man is not justified by works of Law, but only 



THE MAKllJ^G OF PAUL TU^ APOSTLE 145 

through trust in Jesus Christ/^ (^) is the keynote of the 
Galatian letter; and of the Roman, ^Tor we reckon that 
a man is justified by trust, apart from works of Law."(^) 
That is what Paul calls ^^my gospel/^ and it is of this that 
he insists, ^Tor I also did not receive it from man, nor 
was I taught it, but I received it through an appearance 
(revelation) of Jesus Christ." (^) 

It is his originality, not any supernatural revelation, 
that Paul stresses. ^^But when God, who set me apart 
from birth, was pleased to make his Son manifest in me, 
that I should make known his gospel among the 
nations, straightway I did not confer with flesh and 
blood . . . but I went away into Arabia/' (^) The ap- 
pearance of Jesus to him was his "revelation," and Paul 
was convinced that then and there he received his commis- 
sion of apostleship, and the conviction that Jesus was the 
Messiah and Saviour, especially his own personal Saviour. 
A new man was born in that hour, and out of that expe- 
rience and much subsequent study and thought developed 
those ideas of "faith" and "Law," of "works" and "right- 
eousness," that became fundamental in his thinking and 
teaching. 

To stretch Paul's "gospel" so as to make it cover all 
of his later writings, and to assert in his name that what- 
ever he taught is to be regarded as part of his "revelation," 
and therefore to be clothed with a character of super- 
natural authority; in a word, to strive to invest all the 
teachings of Paul with the authority of Jesus himself — 
this is an interpretation of Paul's words that Christian 
scholarship has never authorized, nor Christian good sense 
approved. Nothing that the apostle says about his expe- 
riences requires us to believe that they are different in 
kind from those of his fellow Christians, though they 

rTOal. 2:16. 
(*) Rom. 3:28. 
(«) Gal. 1:12. 
(*) Gal. 1:15. 



146 FUXDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

inav well have differed in degTee. They were, in quality, 
for all that appears to the contrary, just such experiences 
as all disciples in all ages have had. 

There are just two exceptions to this statement: the 
appearance of Jesus was admittedly imique; and Paul 
speaks once of special revelations in which he heard ^^un- 
speakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to 
utter. *^(^) Since he never uttered them it is the same to 
us as if they never occurred. Xormally he seems to have 
been led into the truth by the Spirit of God, according to 
the promise of Jesus. (") To assume the supernatural to 
explain the natural is gratuitous and irrational. 

This is particularly true of the ^'revelation" regard- 
ing the Lord's supper. f"^) Paul says: 'Tor I received 
from the Lord, what I also delivered to you, that the Lord 
Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took a 
loaf; and having given thanks he broke it and said, ^This 
is my body, which is for you ; this do in remembrance of 
me.' In like manner also the cup, after they had supped, 
saying, ^This cup is the new covenant in my blood; this 
do, as oft as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' " The 
great majority of commentators on this passage insist on 
interpreting the words "1 received from the Lord" as 
meaning "1 received this by direct revelation." 

Did Jesus apjDear to Paul again and relate this story to 
him, giving him the exact words in which the holy supper 
was instituted ? Is it credible that Paul would have passed 
over in silence an event of so enormous significance as 
such a second appearance of Jesus to him ? And if that is 
the meaning of Paul's words, it follows that the narratives 
in the Gospels are quite incorrect, and that we have here 
the only trustworthy account of the Last Supper — for, of 
peculiar authority as if Jesus spoke through him, must be 

(M 2 Cor. 12:1-4. 
(-) John 1G:13. 
C) 1 Cor. 11:23-25. 



THE MAiaiS^G or P.1UL THE APOSTLE 147 

accurate to the last detail. But is not the other alternative 
far preferable^ is it not virtually the only sane opinion, 
that Paul received this account from his Lord mediately, 
through some disciple who was present, or through cur- 
rent tradition? 

Such, then, must be regarded as the true content of the 
apostle's idea of ^^revelation." 

Ill 

It would be most unfair to Paul to hold him in any way 
responsible for the exaggerated claims in his behalf of 
those who have admired him not wisely but too well. To 
do him mere justice, he never thought of making such 
claims. If he had ever put forward pretensions so enor- 
mous, no one of his generation would have listened to him. 
And Jesus excluded the very possibility of such claims 
by anybody coming after him and professing to speak in 
his name, when he enjoined his followers not to be called 
Rabbi (which of course included a prohibition to call 
any other man Eabbi) but to regard him as their sole 
Teacher and themselves equally his disciples. He thus 
signified in words immistakable that his teaching was final 
for them and for all who should trust in him. Any 
who should come later, claiming special authority from 
liim as religious teachers, were to be reckoned impostors. 

When Jesus knew himself about to leave his followers, 
did he modify this injunction in any way ? Did he, even 
by subtlest hint, give warning of his intention to appoint 
some one outside of the Twelve to a higher authority than 
theirs, one who was to be his chief accredited organ, 
through whom he was to continue to be the Teacher of 
his Church? He did not. On the contrary, he assured 
the Twelve that he would send in his stead the Paraclete, 
the Spirit of Truth, to teach them in all things and guide 
them into all the truth. And this was his last word to 
them, as it is his last word to us. 



148 FUiS'DAMEIsrTALS OF CHKISTIANITY 

We have the explicit warrant, therefore, of our Master 
himself for asserting that anybody who puts himself for- 
ward, or is put forward by others, in the character of organ 
or mouthpiece or viceregent of Christ, or in any other way 
unique representative of Jesus, and so to speak with 
peculiar authority as if Jesus spoke through him, must be 
rejected as at the very least the victim of megalomania or 
delusion or unwise hero-worship. Yet there are those who 
think they honor both Jesus and Paul when they contradict 
the words of Jesus and cast Paul for the role of impostor. 
The utmost that can be said truthfully for Paul, as it is the 
utmost that he claimed for himself, is that the promise 
of Jesus was fulfilled to him, and that he, like the Twelve, 
like all sincere disciples of Jesus, was taught by the 
Spirit of Truth. 

The Roman claim, that in the Pope the Church has an 
infallible organ, through whom Christ still speaks to his 
faithful ones, is little more incredible or unhistorical than 
the claim that Paul was made the chief accredited organ 
of Jesus. For Jesus has no "organ,'^ has never had one, 
though he has millions of organs, since every Christian 
believer is the mouthpiece of the Christ, in just so far as 
he permits the Holy Spirit to dwell in him and speak 
through him. This is the teaching of all the ITew Testa- 
ment documents, including the writings of Paul himself. 

That Jesus of Xazareth spent his public life in giving 
to the Twelve a teaching that he declared to be the Way 
of Life: and that he had no sooner left the world than 
from his state in glory he straightway deputed another 
man to be his chief accredited organ; and that through 
this new mouthpiece he proceeded to set aside the chief 
part of what he had taught during his lifetime, substitut- 
ing for his simple ethics a complicated group of theological 
speculations, so as to make a system of theology the gospel, 
instead of a proclamation of the Kingdom of God — this is 
a hypothesis so fantastic, so lacking in all elements of 



THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 149 

credibility, that one marvels how it could find a sane advo- 
cate anywhere. Who can credit that the Heavenly Christ 
taught through Paul something so different from what 
the earthly Jesus taught the Twelve ? There is the cmx 
of the whole matter. Can we, if we would, regard the 
Gospels and the Pauline epistles as literary products or 
thought products of the same personality ? 

It is a historical fact, of course, that the entire Church 
of the following centuries proceeded to substitute Paul 
for Jesus, as the authoritative teacher of Christianity. 
For ^^the truth as it is in Jesus'' the Fathers taught the 
truth as it is in Paul. But they did this without conscious- 
ness of what they were doing, never attempting dogmatic 
justification for their conduct. Had they stated a reason 
in the bald terms employed above, it would no doubt have 
seemed incredible, even in those times when almost any- 
thing was credible and credited but the truth. The 
most gullible and careless of the ^Tathers" would never 
have admitted in so many words, that the glorified Jesus 
speaking through Paul could stultify the earthly Jesus 
speaking through his own lips. Such a proposition must 
be carefully sugar-coated to be swallowed by any. But 
though this reason was never explicitly given, the Church 
acted as if it believed this to be true. Paul's teaching 
was quietly put in place of the teaching of Jesus. ]!Tot 
one of the great theologians of the Church — Athanasius, 
Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Calvin — drew 
any considerable part of his doctrine from the words of 
Jesus. All without exception, Catholic or Protestant, are 
expounders of Paul. 

Paul insisted vehemently, almost passionately, on the 
genuineness of his apostolic call, and rested it on the same 
ground that validated the apostolate of the Twelve — the 
risen Jesus had appeared to him also with a command 
to be his witness. It would not be fair to urge against 
him his deprecatory words to the Corinthians, ^Tor I am 



I 



150 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the least of the apostles, that am not fit to be called an 
apostle ;'' for the words following show this humility to be 
due to a sense of personal unworthiness, not of official 
inferiority: ^iDecause I persecuted the church of 6od.''(^) 
When his official authority was challenged, this humility 
dropped from him like a garment, and he could say to 
the same Corinthians, ^Tor I reckon that I am not a whit 
behind the very chief est apostles." (^) But though he 
thus claimed with emphasis entire official equality with 
the Twelve, and did not hesitate to reprove Peter publicly 
when Peter was clearly in the Avrong, he never claimed 
more than equality. He never asserted for himself such 
a relation to Jesus as would make the Twelve by com- 
parison mere ciphers. Such conceit in Paul is as unthink- 
able as tolerance of it by the Twelve. 

From the time of Constantine it was held that the 
promise of Jesus to send to his disciples the Spirit of 
Truth, had been fulfilled in such wise that the voice of the 
Church was the voice of Christ. A vast spiritual des- 
potism was gradually built on the basis of that falsehood, 
and it required the great convulsion of the sixteenth 
century to win once more for Christian men a measure 
of that liberty wherewith Christ made us free. !N"ow some 
would build a new spiritual despotism on the claim that 
the voice of Paul is the voice of Christ. In our day pure 
religion must do battle for the principle that the voice of 
Christ was heard once for all in the words of Jesus, and 
that all other pretended voices of Christ are delusion or 
sham. 

IV 

We have touched rather lightly on that event in Paul's 
life which marked the crisis in his thinking and doing: 
the appearance of Jesus to him as he was journeying 

C) Cor. 15:9. 
(') 2 Cor. 11:5. 



THE i^rATvlJSTG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 



151 



toward Damascus. We have noted the significance of the 
event without inquiring exactly what took place. We 
have three accounts, all in the Acts of the Apostles, one in 
the words of the author of that book, the other two pur- 
porting to be the apostle's own narrative of what happened. 
There are some remarkable differences in these accounts, 
which will be made plainer if brief summaries are placed 
in parallel columns : 



Acts 9:3-7 

There flashed a light 
out of heaven. 

Saul fell to the 
ground. 

Voice : Saul, Saul, 
why do you perse- 
cute me? 

Saul: Who are you, 
sir? 

Voice: I am Jesus, 
whom you perse- 
cute; but rise and 
enter into the city 
and it will be told 
you what you must 
do. 



Companions heard 
voice, but saw no 
one. 



Acts 22:6-10 

There flashed around 
me a great light out 
of heaven. 

I fell to to ground. 

Voice : Saul, Saul, 
why do you perse- 
cute me? 

Saul: Who are you, 
sir 

Voice: I am Jesus of 
Nazareth, whom 
you persecute. 

Saul: What shall I 
do, sir? 

Voice: Arise and go 
into Damascus, and 
there it will be 
told you of all 
things that are ap- 
pointed you to do. 

Companions beheld 
light, but did not 
hear voice. 



Acts 26:18-19 

I saw a light from 
heaven above the 
sun. 

All fell to the ground. 

Voice: Saul, why do 
you persecute me ? 
It is hard for you 
to kick against the 
goads. 

Saul: Who are you, 
sir? 

Voice: I am Jesus, 
whom you persecute 
( quite a long speech 
follows, nearly a 
hundred words, cor- 
responding to noth- 
ing in the other ac- 
counts) . 

Nothing said about 
companions either 
seeing or hearing. 



From careful comparison of these three accounts, as- 
suming that the first, in the words of Luke, was probably 
derived directly from Paul, certain conclusions inevitably 
follow : 

1. This appearance of Jesus was to Paid alone. The 
first account says that his companions saw no one, and tlie 
second that they saw only the light. The first account 
says that they heard the voice, to which the second gives 
an apparently flat contradiction, that they did not hear 



152 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

the voice. But the contradition may be only apparent. 
The Greek word used means both ^^sound'' and *Voice/' 
and the real fact probably was that the companions of 
Saul heard a sound, but no words. Not one of the three 
accounts says or fairly implies that the companions either 
saw Jesus or heard him speak; the contrary conclusion is 
clearly implied in the second and third accounts, and is 
quite consistent with the first. No interpretation of the 
three is possible, without straining words or phrases un- 
duly, than this : Paul alone saw Jesus and heard him speak 
intelligible words. The others, at most, saw a light and 
heard a sound. 

2. This appearance of Jesus to Paul ivas not ohjective. 
By ^^objective'^ is meant an event cognizable by the senses 
in the ordinary way. If Jesus had appeared in visible, 
material form, would not the others have seen him as 
clearly as Paul? If Jesus had spoken audible words, 
would not the others have heard him as distinctly as 
Paul? This is no attempt to evacuate Paul's testimony 
of its legitimate meaning; it is an attempt to evaluate 
the testimony in its fair significance, accepting just what 
Paul tells us, but declining to read into it a meaning that 
the words do not fairly bear. An objective material ap- 
pearance of Jesus, that could be detected by the ordinary 
exercise of the senses of sight and hearing, seems to be 
carefully excluded from the narrative by the words chosen 
to describe the event. (^) 

3. The appearance of Jesus was therefore made to 
Paul's spirit, not to his body. It was a "heavenly vi- 
sion" (^) but not a physical sight of Jesus that he had; 
words addressed to his soul, not to his ear, that he heard. 

(^) The latest biography of Paul, by an ''orthodox" Presbyterian, 
the Rev. David Smith, D.D., Professor of Theology in the M^Crea 
Magee College, Londonderry, a scholarly work, quite abreast of re- 
cent investigations, takes precisely the above view of the vision of 
Paul. "The Life and Letters of St. Paul," New York, 1921, p. 53. 

(2) Acts 26:19. 



THE MAKIJN^G OF PAUL THE APOSTEE 153 

This, we repeat, is his own account of the matter, in the 
only sense that his words will fairly bear. 

4. Thus accurately to define the appearance of Jesus 
to Paul, according to the apostle's own testimony, is not 
to deny its reality, but only its materiality. Matter is not 
the only reality in the universe; it is merely the only 
reality that addresses eye and ear. Things visible to the 
eye are not the only things we see, nor are words audible 
to the ear the only words we hear. Seeing and hearing 
are spiritual processes, usually induced by impressions on 
the sensorium, but not always. That Jesus appeared to 
Paul he at least believed to be the most real thing in his 
life, and why need we doubt the reality of this vision of 
his merely because others did not see and hear? The 
change in his character, the total transformation of his 
life, are things inexplicable on any theory other than his 
own: the inexpungable conviction of his soul that Jesus 
met him in the way to Damascus and commissioned him 
to preach the gospel to the nations. Others have pro- 
nounced this Delusion; to Paul it was Pact, less open to 
doubt than any other fact, as certain to him as his own 
existence. 

Nor is there any answer, except mere refusal to accept 
it, to the view that this appearance may have had a mate- 
rial basis of an extraordinary kind. In saying above that 
it was immaterial and subjective we have only used words 
in their ordinary sense, as describing ordinary experiences 
of ordinary folk. At both ends of the spectrum there are 
rays invisible to our eyes, because our nerves are not sensi- 
tive enough to react to these vibrations of the ether. Above 
and below the musical sounds that we hear* are tones in- 
audible to us, or audible only as noise. Were our ears 
sufficiently acute, it is possible that every sound would be 
musical. Science assures us that these are dependable 
facts, and we cannot therefore say that things do not exist 
because we cannot perceive them. A Superman is con- 



154 FUXDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

ceivable^ with senses of sight and hearing so far developed, 
that his range of knowledge would be immeasurably great- 
er than ours. In the realm of spirit, Jesus was a Super- 
. man. And there have been other choice spirits, so much 
more exquisitely attuned to the Infinite, that they have 
apprehended things beyond the ken of most. Such was 
Paul, such was Francis of Assisi. We lesser breeds can 
do no better than receive gratefully from such men what 
we cannot perceive for ourselves. The only obstacle to 
our doing this is our reluctance to admit that others sur- 
pass us in spiritual insight. 

The one thing that cannot be questioned is the perma- 
nent effect of this vision upon Paul. It transformed the 
whole man. Once for all he was convinced that Jesus 
was still living, Son of God, revelation of God's love, en- 
throned with power. He ^'was laid hold on by Christ 
Jesus,'' (^) who had now appeared to him "as to the child 
untimely bom."(^) Henceforth Christ was to him the 
centre of all things and he could say "for me to live is 
Christ." (^) And with this new hope of salvation through 
iove, not through Law, came another conviction into his 
soul, from which he never wavered, that he was specially 
commissioned to preach the Christ among the gentiles. (*) 



Men's religious experiences are determined by the forms 
under which they conceive religious truth — though it is 
equally true that religious concepts are modified by experi- 
ence. Paul early learned to think of God as Sovereign, 
and of men as subject to a system of divine Law, and he 
never learned to think otherwise. To the statutes of God 
he believed that penalties were attached, penalties both 
demanded and inflicted by the justice of God, who would 

n~PMl. 3:12. 

( = ) 1 Cor. 15:8. 

(^) Phil. 1:21; Gal. 2:20. 

(M Gal. 1:16: Acts 22:21. 



THE MAia:XG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 155 

bring every man to judgment. (^) The divine Law dif- 
fered from the human, in that to violate a single statute 
was to be ^^guilty of all'' — that is, a single offence as irre- 
vocably established the status of a sinner as if he had 
transgressed all. In this view, one sin was fatal. All 
men, Jew and Gentile alike, were subject to God's wrath, 
because all had sinned. (^) 

This was Paul's idea of Law. Saul had a quite differ- 
ent notion. He believed that for the Jew, God had pro- 
vided a way of deliverance from sin through the Law 
given to Moses. He diligently sought salvation by this 
means, as ''si Pharisee of Pharisees," and he has given us 
a vivid account of the result of this effort in the seventh 
of Romans. His diligence to obey the Law only increased 
his sense of guilt, and brought him to the brink of despair. 
He continued in increasing agony of soul, until the vision 
of Jesus prompted surrender to him as Lord and trust in 
him as Saviour, and this brought peace to his troubled 
spirit. Martin Luther and John Bunyan have left us 
records of a similar experience, minus the personal ap- 
pearance of Jesus to them. Either of them could have 
written the seventh of Romans out of his experience before 
conversion, and the eighth afterAvards. 

Paul w^as thoroughly loyal to the Master who had ap- 
jieared to him and appointed him an apostle. Loyalty is 
an attitude of soul, a product chiefly of the affections and 
will, only partially of the intellect. The most loyal souls 
sometimes misunderstand their leader. And all experi- 
ence shows that out of an intensely loyal multitude only 
a few will have real comprehension of the person or in- 
stitution that is the object of their utter trust. It need 
not surprise us, still less dismay, if we find from the 
letters of Paul evidence that he was loyal, not to the 
Jesus of fact, the real Jesus disclosed to us in the Gospels, 
but to an ideal Jesus whom he had created out of the 

n^2 Cor. 5:19; 2 Thess. 1:7, 8. 
(*) Rom. ch. 1. 



156 I^UJSTDAMENTALS O:^ CHEISTIAISTITY^ 

Messianic iopes of his race, the sacrificial system of tfu- 
daism and the philosophic ideas that were ^^in the air'^ in 
his day. 

Paul did not claim to be the disciple and expounder of 
Jesus of ITazareth. He never appeals to the teaching of 
Jesus for confirmation of his own doctrine. It cannot 
justly be said that this was due to his vivid consciousness 
of the indwelling Spirit of Jesus^ so that he felt no need 
of confirmation of anything that he taught. He often 
sought confirmation, but nearly always went for it to "the 
Scriptures/^ that is the Old Testament, or else appealed 
to the facts of his own experience. He by no means ex- 
pected, as Jesus so uniformly did, that his teaching would 
be accepted for its own inherent, self-demonstrating truth. 
It was the Heavenly Christ whose disciple Paul professed 
himself to be, and he all but boasted of his ignorance of 
the Jesus whose words we have in the Gospels. The Jesus 
of history, the Jesus of real life, has little to do with the 
teachings of Paul, and certainly the words of Jesus were 
not the chief formative influence in his life. 

Being what he was, a theologian by instinct and train- 
ing, and deeply versed in the Jewish Scriptures and their 
rabbinic interpretations, Paul was impelled to find an ade- 
quate theory of the change that had taken place in him 
and for the new gospel that he felt himself commanded 
to proclaim. His type cannot exist with a religion alone ; 
it must have also a theology, a philosophy of religion. The 
heart of the apostle was fully satisfied with the love of 
the Christ who had redeemed him from the bondage of 
sin and death, but his mind craved an intellectual basis 
for his new religion, a theory that would reconcile his 
experience with his changed conception of the Messiah, 
and at the same time save out of the wreck as much as 
possible of his old Jewish ideas. His conversion, his trust 
in the Jesus whom he had once fought, must be justified 
to his intellect as well as be testified by his consciousness. 



THE MAKING OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 



157 



It was this imperious necessity that produced Paul's the- 
ology, and the conditions under which it was wrought out 
help us to understand both its value and its limitations. 

The organizing thought of Paul's theology is the char- 
acter and work of the Christy but above all the work. As 
before his conversion the cross had been his chief reason 
for rejecting Jesus as Messiah, so now he became con- 
vinced that the cross was the chief feature of Messianic 
work. He now saw that the Messiah could die, because 
Jesus had died yet still lived. He did not die for him- 
self — that were unthinkable — then necessarily for others. 
The cross from which Paul had formerly revolted now 
became his glory; from a badge of shame it was trans- 
formed into an emblem of unspeakable honor. His gos- 
pel became the gospel of the cross. The death of Jesub 
was of so much greater significance than his life that Paul 
felt he could afford to know little about the life. So too 
he could truly protest that his gospel was not of men, not 
based on what he had been told of the deeds and words of 
Jesus, but on his personal vision of Jesus and his personal 
apprehension of the significance of the cross. 

In the light of this conviction, the Jewish sacrifices 
took on a new meaning, and Paul worked out a theory of 
the sacrificial character of the death of Jesus. He did not 
understand the significance of that system in the history 
of his own people. He was quite ignorant of the fact 
that the Jewish sacrifices were part and parcel of that 
system of exploitation, grafting and priestcraft against 
which the prophets inveighed so bitterly and so vainly.(^) 

(1) Lsa. 1:11 sq; 5:23; Micah, Chs. 3; 6: Hos. 4:1, 2; 6:6; Amos 
5:21 sq. In his so-caUed "temple sermon" (7:22, 23) the prophet 
Jeremiah is most explicit. ''Thus says Jehovah of hosts, the God 
of Irsael: 'Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat 
the meat. For on the day I brought your fathers out of Egypt 
I said naught to them, nor did I give them any command, con- 
cerning burnt-offerings or sacrifices. But only this did I com- 
mand them, "Hearken unto my voice and I will be your God 
ajid you will be my people; and walk in the way that I ever 
.enjoin upon you, so that it may be well with you." ' *' 



158 rUXDAMEXTAl.S OF CHRISTIA^S-ITY 

He accepted the system as it existed in his own day, as 
undoubtedly of divine origin, and saw in it a forecast of 
the cross. The Christ had died in man's stead, bearing 
the penalty of man's sin, and God accepted that death as 
a satisfaction of the demands of divine justice. 

Through ^vfaith/' or trust in Jesus and his work, a 
sinner obtains the benefit of this sacrifice; so that, by a 
legal fiction, the righteousness of Christ, the perfect ful- 
filment of the divine Law, is transferred to him who thus 
trusts, so that he is ^^justified" or acquitted of guilt. (^) 
This idea of justification by the transference of Christ's 
righteousness (or God's righteousness, as Paul also calls 
it) to the sinner through ^^faith," is illustrated at length 
in the letters to the Galatians and Romans by the case of 
Abraham, whose confidence in the promise of God was 
accounted to him as righteousness. Faith and its result- 
ing justification constitute ^^salvation" in Paul's mind, that 
is, deliverance from the wrath of God and the power of 
sin and entrance into the eternal life of Christ. Jesus 
as the Messiah has become a second Adam, a new head of 
the race. As a result of accepting salvation through him, 
we have peace with God,(^) real freedom (^) and a new 
character. (*) 

This makes no pretense to being a complete outline of 
the Pauline theology, but purports to be no more than a 
tracing of the process by which its cardinal doctrines seem 
to have developed in his thinking. ]\Iany things are 
omitted, notably the doctrine that has made the greatest 
noise in the world, that of ^^election." The point at pres- 
ent to note is, that this conception of Jesus and his work 
is the result of Paul's training in the school of Gamaliel, 
plus some knowledge of Roman law, such as would be 

n Rom. 3:21-24. 
(-) "Rom. 5:1. 
C) Rom. 6:4. 
(*) Rom. 6:22. 



THE MAKllSTG OF PAUL THE APOSTLE 159 

acquired easily by one who possessed and valned the privi- 
leges of Roman citizenship. 

The notion of Adam's sin as the sin of all men, and 
physical death as well as spiritual the result of sin, is 
rabbinic theology. (^) The conception of vicarious sin- 
bearing is Jewish — and pagan also, for it is found in 
nearly all religions, especially in such as make much of 
animal sacrifices. Jewish are also other elements of Paul's 
teaching, of less fundamental importance, such as his in- 
cidental remarks about angels and demons. The Law, 
he says, was given by angels, (^) thus following rabbinic 
tradition in preference to the Old Testament record. His 
doctrine of the divine predestination, hinted by the proph- 
ets, developed by the rabbis, is another case of his indebt- 
edness to Gamaliel. 

Of probably Gnostic origin is his idea of two contrasted 
aeons, the earthly present and the heavenly future, which 
took so strong hold of his imagination. He differs from 
such later Gnostics as Valentinian or Basilides chiefly in 
ethical passion; intellectually he is their blood brother. 
His doctrine of the Son(^) is hardly distinguishable from 
pure Gnosticism — an emanation of the divine essence, be- 
gotten before all worlds and made the agent of God in 
creation. The difference is that Paul puts into his doc- 
trine an ethical content not found in the cold speculations 
of later Gnosticism. It is these Judaeo-pagan notions in 
Paul's writings that for ages, with unconscious irony, men 
have been proclaiming as the real gospel of Jesus, the only 
pure and undefiled ^^Christianity." 

Paul has another doctrine of the cross, to be sure, which 
is essentially that of Jesus, when he says, ^^I have been 
crucified with Christ." But this, the really Christian 

(^) Rom. ch. 5. 

{') Gal. 3:19. 

(^) Tt has often been pointed ont that the classical passage, 
Phil. 2:6-9, is more easily reconcilable with the later heretical 
homoionsion than with the orthodox homoousion. 



160 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

doctrine of the cross^ Paul's admirers have always prac- 
tically ignored. If challenged, no doubt they would give 
it a perfunctory assent ; but it cuts no figure in their the- 
ology or in their preaching. 



CHAPTER Vlir 
PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABBI 



His contemporaries scarcely thought of Paul as a theolo- 
gian. It was left to his successors to appreciate his great- 
ness as a Christian thinker, but to the men of his own age 
he was preeminent as missionary and organizer. It was 
to John, the ^'beloved disciple/' and not to Paul, that the 
title "^Theologian'' was given by the early Church. The 
last three centuries have been as much inclined to under- 
rate John, as the first three underrated Paul. ITeverthe- 
less, it was the underrated Paul whom the Church actually 
followed. 

We have already seen that the fundamental idea of 
Paul, as of all who have followed him as a theological 
leader, was the Sovereignty of God. He was probably not 
conscious that this was a doctrine of the Jewish priest- 
hood, deeply embedded in the Law, which was mainly of 
priestly origin, and little sympathized with by the proph- 
ets, to whom God's Fatherhood made a stronger appeal. 
The apostle's idea, derived primarily from the Law, was 
also much shaped by the social and political institutions 
of his age. It was natural that the Roman Empire should 
become the type of divine govemm^ent among its subjects, 
even its unwilling and rebellious subjects, like the Jews.. 
And so Paul generally illustrates God's character and acts 
from the thrones of emperors and kings and from their 
courts. His own function appears to him that of am- 

161 



162 FIT]S^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

bassador^^) and the life of Jesus on earth and his exalta- 
tion at the right hand of God are described in terms of 
sovereignty. (^) To him God is King^ Ruler of the Avorld, 
absolute despot^ and therefore supreme Lawgiver and 
Judge. The mere good pleasure of God is the cause of 
all existence and events, and no other explanation is neces- 
sary or even possible. In God's relation to us, justice 
therefore becomes the chief element. He is merciful, to 
be sure, but he must exercise his power of pardon so as 
not to impair the validity of his Law. And, like the des- 
pots of this world, he is capricious in his mercy — ^^He 
will have mercy on whom he will have mercy,'' (^) and 
there is nothing more to be said. To violate his Law, 
which is holy and good, is to deserve a penalty inconceiv- 
ably great; and the wrath of God is kindled against all 
evil-doers. As all men have sinned, all are alike help- 
less and hopeless before this wrath — nothing remains to 
them but misery in this world and in the world to come. 

But we have also seen that Jesus in the Gospels presents 
to us a wholly different ideal of God, which John caught 
and set forth better than Paul. Jesus illustrates the char- 
acter of God, not from the State, but from the family. 
God is ^^Our Father who is in Heaven." His chief char- 
acteristic is love of all the world, an impartial love that 
sends rain alike on just and unjust. If Paul conceives 
the mercy of God as arbitrary and bestowed on a few 
chosen ones, Jesus conceives God's mercy as freely given 
to all who will receive it. The 'Vrath" of the Father- 
God is directed, not against the sinner, but against sin — 
it is the revolt of purity from impurity, of goodness from 
everything evil. Even an earthly father, just so far as 
he is good, ^^hates" evil, but does not hate his sinning 
child; the moment his wrath is kindled against his child, 

C) 2 Cor. 5:20. 
C) Phil. 2:1-11. 
(3) Rom. 9:15; cf. Ex. 33:19. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIA^r RABBI lOO 

he ceases to measure up to our ideal of a truly good father. 

These decided differences in ideas of God necessitate 
corresponding differences regarding ^^law" and ^^penalty." 
Paul conceives the Law of a Sovereign in the heavens as 
like human law in principle : it is a definite statute, whose 
validity rests on the will and authority of the maker, and 
has a definite penalty affixed, proportioned to the gravity 
of the offense. This penalty must be regarded as just 
punishment of a lawbreaker by an offended ruler, and is 
imposed, not for the offender's sake, but for the ruler's, 
to uphold his dignity and authority. On the other hand, 
a Heavenly Father's law is an ethical principle, an ex- 
pression of his goodness and love, a demand for that per- 
fection in his people which is found in himself. Jesus 
says little about penalty, and leaves us to infer its nature 
from what he does say about the Father's love. The in- 
ference that seems best to accord with his teaching is: 
since God's Law is the expression of his love, what we 
call the penalty of sin is but the discipline by which he 
seeks to turn the erring back to himself. As in nature, 
so in grace, penalty is the inevitable consequence of trans- 
gressing Law: it is not suffering inflicted in retaliation 
for transgression. 

Let us pursue this parallel a little further, for it is full 
of instruction. God has ordained such a connection be- 
tween things in nature that when we transgress a ^^lav^' 
we suffer certain consequences. What we call a ^^law of 
nature" is simply a uniform method in which God oper- 
ates through things. If we act by another method, we ex- 
perience results more or less disagreeable, and by repeated 
results of this kind we are taught to respect the ^^law" 
and conform our conduct to it. When, in our baby days, 
we put our hand on a hot stove, in spite of maternal warn- 
ings, the smart taught us to respect God's method of op- 
eration that we call heat, and so to adjust our relations to 
it as to make it minister to our comfort, not disconxfort. 



164 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHEISTIAlSriTY 

The burn was not punishment, not an act of God's ven- 
geance because we have disobeyed one of his ^^laws/' but a 
means of salutary discipline. But for such lessons in our 
tender years, we might at a later time do ourselves a far 
worse mischief. 

Ethical penalty is just like that: a necessary conse- 
quence of wrong-doing, a discipline into right-doing, not 
an act of vengeance on the part of an angry God. There 
I is no such thing in nature as retribution or punishment, 
'and we have no ground to assume such a principle in 
God's moral order. Men have transferred their imper- 
fect laws and institutions to the heavens, and imputed to 
God the shortcomings and inconsistencies and brutalities 
of their ^^justice." A loving father cannot inflict bruises 
and wounds on his child as retaliation for wrong-doing; 
but he may permit a large liberty, in the exercise of which 
his child may bruise and wound himself into a better 
knowledge of safe and right conduct. The father will do 
this for the child's own good, because no other knowl- 
edge than that gained through personal experience is of 
real or permanent value. So the Father of our spirits, 
we may be very sure, will condemn no child of his to 

j misery, temporary or everlasting; but, in order to form 
in us an ethical character, and to discipline us into right- 
eousness, he will permit us to incur the misery that cer- 

i tainly follows wrong-doing, and to remain in misery until 
we turn to him and seek forgiveness and righteousness. 

The principles of right conduct are founded in human 
nature and express its highest possibilities and joys. To 
act contrary to these principles is to fail to realize our 
best, to establish a state of disharmony and suffering with- 
in ; it is not to be conceived as losing eternal blessedness, 
except as such loss is the necessary accompaniment of los- 
ing present blessedness. The consequences of ethical 

I transgression are sometimes spiritual, sometimes physical, 

I generally both; and both are as certain as gravitation. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIAN RABBI 165 

There is no rational justification for ^^pnnishment'' under 
human law, but the welfare of society and the welfare of 
the individual. God needs no protection from what man 
can do; consequently, the only rational justification for 
penalty inflicted by him is that it promotes human wel- 
fare, disciplines men into higher character, brings the 
w^andering child of God back to his Father. 

It appears from comparison of these ideas of God, sin, 
penalty, that Paul's teachings are not so much wrong as 
inadequate. His ideas are too exclusively legalistic and 
not sufficiently ethical. ^^ Where there is no law, neither 
is there transgression" (^) is a saying that clearly marks 
his limitations. In this he doe^ not stand alone among 
the apostles, for even the spiritual John defines sin as 
^^transgression of law."(^) Both Paul and Jesus at- 
tempted to make known the character of God and his re- 
lations to man through human analogies, and human analo- 
gies are imperfect illustrations of the divine. That God 
is both Sovereign and Father may well be our conclusion. 
Both methods of illustrating his character are valid and 
helpful. But in our conception of God, one function or 
the other is almost certain to predominate. Shall it be 
paternal love or kingly authority? In the teaching of 
Jesus, paternal love certainly predominates. In the teacl:- 
ing of Paul kingly authority takes first place. "Which 
shall we follow in our thinking, Jesus or Paul ? 

In our idea of law we must likewise choose as its basal 
principle either the will of the lawmaker or his character. 
Is the moral law binding on us because God wills it so, 
or because this is his only possible self-expression ? From 
Jesus we get one idea of God's law, from Paul another. 
To which shall we attribute greater authority? The an- 
swer cannot be refused by any genuine disciple of Jesus: 
He is the fullest, the clearest, the highest revelation of 
God, and his word is for us final authority. 

rTRom. 4:15. 
( = ) 1 John 3:4. 



166 rUNDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAIS^ITY 

II 

From these fundamental postulates of Jesus and Paul 
follow divergent ideas of sin and salvation. Paul's fa- 
vorite word for sin is djiagtia, a missing of the mark, 
failure to reach a standard ; but he occasionally uses other 
imrighteousness, and dSixta, words, like JtaQdjttco|ia. 
transgression, a turning aside from the way of right and 
truth. It is not so much the use of these words, which 
are also found in the Gospels, as their constant recurrence 
in connection with the Law 6 v6|xog, that marks the 
apostle's conception of sin as essentially legalistic. (^) 

It is not so easy to deduce from what Jesus says about 
sin what his fundamental idea is; he specifies and illus- 
trates rather than defines. But one can gather from his 
teaching as a whole that his conception of sin is the asser- 
tion of self against God and our brothers, since he makes 
the prime condition of discipleship that a man should ut- 
terly renounce self. In the mind of Jesus, therefore, sin 
would appear to be the choice of individual good in place 
of the common good. It is the opposite of righteousness, 
which means every method by which man shows love to 
God and his fellows. Jesus never indicated that he re- 
garded sin as primarily the violation of law, but he vir- 
tually defined it when he gave as his summary of the 
Law, ^^Thou shalt love.'' Sin is failure to love, refusal 
to love, and love is essentially selfless. 

^^Salvation," as regards the individual, has a twofold 
meaning in the 'New Testament, and in all Christian lit- 
erature. It denotes first of all that inward harmony and 
peace, assurance of safety here and hereafter, which re- 
sults from trust in Jesus and conformity to the will of 
God. The attainment of this peace is usually called "con- 

(^) The word diiagTia occurs 47 times in Romans alone, more 
than one-fourth of the number of times (171) in the entire N. T. 
vouog is found in Eomans 71 times out of 192; but d6ixia (7) and 
jcaQOUtTWua ( 9 ) are much less frequent. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIAN KABBI 167 

version/' and is normally a sudden and joyful experience. 
But salvation also denotes the process of fashioning life 
and character into likeness of the new ideals that this ex- 
perience brings us — a process that begins at once and con- 
tinues to the end of life, called by theologians ^^sanctifica- 
tion.'' It is an experience of deep and growing blessed- 
ness, rather than of great joy. The goal of salvation is 
attainment of perfect character. 

Jesus conceived and described his own mission as that 
of a Deliverer. What sort of deliverance he brought to 
men he himself explained in the synagogue at Nazareth: 
it is deliverance from captivity. Men are slaves of sin: 
Jesus offers freedom. It is also described as rescue of 
the lost, those who have wandered from Father and home. 
To effect his purpose he said that he gave his life as a 
ransom(^) — his life, not merely his death, as theologians 
have narrowly interpreted him. He also came to reveal 
God to man, because to know God is Eternal Life;(^) 
and so his mission may be described as the giving of 
abundant Life to all who trust in him.(^) 

The works of Jesus illustrate his words, especially the 
works of healing that fill so large a place in the Gospels. 
The blind, deaf, palsied, leprous, demoniacs, have bodily 
infirmities that correspond to spiritual defects and de- 
formities, from which Jesus is men's Deliverer or Saviour. 
He came to seek and deliver such, as he makes plain in 
his parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, the Lost 
Son. jSTowhere perhaps is this idea of salvation more 
sharply defined than in the story of Zaccheus. When 
this unjust and oppressive tax-collector was convinced of 
the error of his ways and declared his purpose to live a 
new life, Jesus said, ^^To-day is salvation come to this 
house." The salvation of Zaccheus consisted in his adop- 

n"Mark 10:45. 

(-) John 17:3. 

C) John 3:15; 6:53; 10:10, 28. 



168 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

tion of a wholly new attitude toward God and men, which 
was expressed in his offer of restitution. He had acquired 
a new social conscience; he had experienced the sense of 
brotherhood; he had promptly accepted and conformed to 
the new standard of conduct that brotherly love required 
of him. 

Jesus represents such an ethical volte face also in the 
case of the Prodigal. The key-word of that story is, 
^^But when he came to himself." For the first time the 
young man saw himself and his conduct in the true light, 
and the consequence was immediate revulsion of feeling, 
determination to forsake the past and change his relation 
to his father. But Paul represents a like change in our 
relations to God, we are told, as not of our will but wholly 
of divine gTace, *Taith is the gift of God.''(/) Xo doubt 
there is a sense in which this is true ; everything we have 
and are is God's gracious gift. Sight is the gift of God, 
but God does not see for us ; food is the gift of God, but 
we must procure food for ourselves and eat it for our- 
selves. Capacity of trust is God's gift, but exercise of 
trust in a particular case is our act. God does not save 
us by any miracle. He does not snatch us as brands from 
the burning, or rescue us from the slough of evil, and at 
once place us on the piimacle of righteousness. With his 
aid, to be sure, but by our own effort, we must painfully 
climb from the depths to the heights. Salvation must be 
won, not given, and no other salvation would be worth 
having, even if it were possible. 

That is common sense and sound psychology and Chris- 
tian experience. Paul's teaching is not irreconcilable with 
it, if fairly interpreted ; but it has been given an interpre- 
tation for many generations that makes it totally contra- 
dictory of our consciousness. If God produces or compels 
or gives faith, it is his faith, not ours. 

Paul's first premise in working out his doctrine of sal- 

(') Eph. 2:8. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIAN EABBI 169 

vation was : The wrath of God impends over a sinful world, 
which he w^ill soon bring to judgment. The way of de- 
liverance from this wrath has been provided by the mercy 
of God^ through the death of His Son^ w^hich constitutes 
a propitiation for the world^s sin, because of its sacrificial 
efficacy. The method of deliverance is ^^faith," or glad 
and thankful acceptance of this sacrifice that divine love 
in the Father conceived and divine love in the Son con- 
summated. On the ground of this faith, God holds the 
sinner to be ^^justified'^^) or acquitted at the bar of jus- 
tice, the righteousness of Christ being by a legal fiction at- 
tributed or ^^imputed" to him. The result is a new man, 
who brings forth the ^^fruits of the Spirit," conduct and 
character such as a man delivered from sin should exhibit. 

Dante endeavors to improve on the theologians in his 
statement of this forensic view of salvation, in his De 
Monarchia. In the conclusion of the second book he 
elaborately argues that Jesus, by suffering under the sen- 
tence of Pilate, delegate and servant of the Emperor, and 
so the agent of a worldwide imperiurrij, made salvation 
certain. For all mankind were sinners through the fall 
of Adam, and so a penalty inflicted by one who had juris- 
diction over less than the entire human race, would have 
been insufficient to atone for the sins of all men. In at- 
tempting to strengthen Paul's argument, Dante has very 
effectively reduced it to absurdity. ISTo such frigid and 
rigid calculations can be admitted into modern theology, 
however germane they may have seemed to the mediaeval. 

Another part of the theological notion of sin cannot 
fairly be charged to Paul, namely, the doctrine known as 
*^total depravity.'' Total depravity is a doctrine equally 
slanderous to Paul and to human nature. It is violentlv 



(^) In the Jewish and Roman law of PaiiPs time, ^^justification" 
was tlie acquittal of the accused by the judge. It was not pardon of 
an offence, but a declaration that he was not guilty of offence. Paul 
uses this procedure to describe and illustrate the Christian's eX' 
perience in the forgiveness of sins, 



170 FUISTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAIs"ITY 

opposed to facts of consciousness and experience, even in 
its milder interpretation, not that every man is as bad as 
he can be, but that in every part of his nature he is cor- 
rupted by sin, so that he can do nothing good. Conscious- 
ness testifies clearly that we can do good, that we do achieve 
good, that good and bad are intermingled in every char- 
acter and in every man's conduct. If it is true that we 
inherit a bias toward evil from our parents, it is equally 
true that we inherit a bias toward good ; our parents trans- 
mit to us characters, as well as estates — capitalized virtue, 
no less than capitalized wealth. 

On the whole, it must be concluded, even after making 
all possible allow^ance for misunderstanding and distortion 
by interpreters, that the difference between Jesus and Paul 
regarding sin and salvation is a very real one, beginning 
in their fundamental ideas and extending through all de- 
tails. Paul's salvation is a scheme for the deliverance of 
individuals, not of society. It does not aim at the estab- 
lishment of a Kingdom of God on earth, but definitely 
postpones the realization of that Kingdom to the world to 
come, in the saying that ^^flesh and blood cannot inherit 
the Kingdom of God."(^) A social religion was wholly 
outside the ideas of the great apostle to the Gentiles ; but 
it was the chief message of Jesus to the world. 

Ill 

From his idea of God's Fatherhood and universal love, 
Jesus proceeded to his teaching concerning God's provi- 
dence, or care for all his children. That poetic and elo- 
quent passage in the Sermon on the Mount, beginning, 
^^Be not anxious for your life,"(^) is perhaps his fullest 
exposition of his thought, but it finds frequent briefer ex- 
pression in his other discourses: 

C) 1 Cor. 15:50. 

(=) Matt. 6:25; cf. Luke 12:22. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIAiSr RABBI 171 

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthings 

And not one of them will fall on the ground without 
your Father. 
But the very hairs of your head are all numbered : 

So do not fear — you are worth more than many spar- 
rows. (^) 

So when he sent out his disciples two by two to pro- 
claim the Kingdom of God through the towns of Galilee, 
he bade them trust in God's providence. In this case, 
God's care for them was to be shown through the love and 
hospitality of their brothers: 

Heal sick^ raise dead^ cleanse lepers, cast out demons: 

You received without pay, give without pay. 
Take no gold or silver or copper in your girdles, 

No handbag for the journey, nor change of clothing, 
Neither sandals nor staff. 
For the worker is worthy of his food.(^) 

Paul also strongly emphasizes the providence of God 
in the case of believers: ^Tor Ave know that all things 
work together for good to them that love God'' — but, as 
the words following show, this is a corollary, not from 
the love of God for all his creatures, but from God's elec- 
tion of a few to a special grace ; for the apostle adds, ^^to 
them that are called according to his purpose." (^) This 
doctrine of the divine election is, according to many in- 
terpreters of Paul, his distinctive teaching, and it lies at 
the basis of that system of theology known as Calvinism. 

Election, according to these interpreters, is the appoint- 
ment of some men to eternal life, which logically implies 
that others are not elect and so cannot attain to eternal 
life. Election depends upon the divine sovereignty; it 
is the unconditioned exercise of the divine will, which it 
is impious to question. Luther even maintained that this 
act of will must be conceived as purely arbitrary and with- 

n^Matt. 10:29-31. 
(") Matt. 10:5-10. 
( = ) Rom. 8:28. 



17^ FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRlSTiANlT'^ 

out reason, on the ground that to make God's will depend 
on reason would be to suppose something higher than God. 
To maintain God's sovereignty, therefore, we must firmly 
hold that he acts irrationally! ]S"ot all interpreters have 
drawn so extreme a conclusion from the illustration that 
Paul borrowed from Jeremiah (^) about the potter and 
his clay. The apostle repeats the prophet's question, ^^Has 
not the potter a right over the clay ?" May he not make 
of it whatever seems good to him ? A vessel for honor or 
a vessel for dishonor, a vessel for use or a vessel for de- 
struction ?(^) And the answer is not Yes, but I^o, for 
men are not clay, not inanimate things with which man or 
God may do whatever pleases, but creatures made in God's 
image, whom, since has has made them such, God is bound 
by his own character of goodness and justice to treat 
ethically. 

If the ninth of Romans were, as so many have inter- 
preted it, an unqualified assertion of God's right to deal 
with men as he pleases, we could not receive from Paul or 
any other such a doctrine of God without serious modifica- 
tion. God's ^^rights" are the right to be God and the 
right to act like God. It is not in accord with God's char- 
acter, as Jesus has revealed him to us, to refuse mercy to 
any. We must seek a better exegesis of Paul. If we 
study this chapter without theological prepossessions, we 
shall see clearly that it is of the nature of an argumentum 
ad hominem, a rebuke to Jewish racial prejudice and re- 
ligious conceit. Then we shall not try to draw from it 
consequences that Paul has himself repudiated elsewhere. 

For Paul is nearly as emphatic as Jesus himself in 
proclaiming the universal love and mercy of God. l^oth- 
ing could be more explicit than his word to Timothy about 
^^God our Saviour, who would have all men to be saved 
and come to the knowledge of the truth." (^) And if any 

rTjer. 18:2. 

(2) Rom. 9:21. ^ 

(•) 1 Tim. 2:4; cf. 2 Pet. 3:9. 



PAUL THE CHRISTIAIS^ EABBI 116 

doubt whether these are genuine words of Paul, they surely 
cannot question his assertion to the Corinthians that ^^God 
was in Christ reconciling the world to himself/' (^) which 
he repeats to the Colossians in nearly the same words, that 
it was God's pleasure that in Christ should all the fulness 
dwell "and through him to reconcile all things unto him- 
self . . . whether things on the earth or things in 
the heavens." (^) IvTor can any sane interpretation, other 
than the desire of God for all men's salvation, be placed 
on the argument in the fifth of Romans, especially in 
verses 12-21, where an elaborate parallel is drawn between 
the effect of Adam's sin on the race and the effect of 
Christ's righteousness — the one as universal as the other. 
This represents an ideal of salvation, no doubt, not the 
fact, but an ideal that cannot possibly be reconciled with 
God's having willed that any man shall lose eternal life. 
Calvin would not only set Paul at variance with Jesus, 
but makes Paul quarrel with Paul. 

This notion of an election of the few^ to salvation and 
the many to damnation is not a Christian idea, but a Jew- 
ish. Both Jesus and Paul had to contend with it and did 
contend with it. The Jews were absolutely certain that 
they were an elect people, the special favorites of God, 
marked out from all others as peculiar recipients of Je- 
hovah's mercy. They quoted with unction the saying of 
their great Lawgiver: "For thou art a holy people to 
Jehovah thy God; Jehovah thy God has chosen thee to 
be a special people to himself from all the peoples that 
are on the face of the earth." (^) The whole world was 

(') 2 Cor. 5:19. 

n Col. 1:20. 

(*) Deut. 7:6 and repeated in 14:2. But this was the voice of 
the Law, of priestly origin. Had they read their prophets better, 
the Jews wonld have had less of this conceit: ''Verily you are not 
better to me, men of Israel, than the Kushites, saith Jehovah. I 
did indeed lead forth the Israelites from Egypt, but I also led forth 
the Philistines from Kaphtor, and the Arameans from Kir." Amos, 
9:7. 



174 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

ultimately to be theirs and Messiah's kingdom was to be 
an everlasting kingdom. In the sure word of prophecy 
they beheld the coining world dominion of the Jewish race, 
as the Roman then dominated the world. Salvation was 
for the Jew: the Gentile had no part or lot in it. That 
they were made a special people by God in order to be 
custodians and stewards of his grace, that they were a 
nation elect to be a blessing to the Gentiles whom they 
despised, was clearly said in their sacred writings, but 
never understood by them; and whatever glimmerings of 
truth the prophets had led some to see had faded out of 
mind long ago. ITothing but religious conceit and arro- 
gance was left in the mind of a Jew of Paul's generation. 
It was these ideas that Jesus found to be insuperable 
obstacles to success in his mission, and he vigorously com- 
batted them on every appropriate occasion. In his dis- 
course at I^azareth he antagonized this national conceit 
with great boldness and energy: 

But I tell you truly, there were many widows in Israel in 
Elijah^s days, when the heaven was shut up three years and 
six months, when a great famine came over all the land ; and 
to no one of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath^ in 
the land of Sidon, to a woman that was a widow. And there 
were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha ; 
and no one of them was cleansed, but only JsTaaman the 
Syrian. 

This rebuke of their pride produced a quick and violent 
reaction among his hearers: those who at first had won- 
dered at the gracious words of Jesus were turned by this 
discourse into an angry and murderous mob. 

On the other hand, theologians have professed to draw 
from the writings of Paul a doctrine of election in violent 
contrast to that of Jesus, not to say contradiction — an 
election of some men to eternal life and others to eternal 
death, a choice having no ethical basis but only the arbi- 



PAUL THE CIIEISTIAN EABBI 175 

trary good pleasure of the Almighty; a decree that has 
condemned the majority of every generation to eternal 
misery, and that will continue so to condemn them to the 
end of time. This is the most frightful doctrine that the 
intellect of man has ever conceived — even Calvin had the 
grace to declare it ^^horrible/' while he maintained it to 
be true. And the real, Simon-pure Calvinism insists that, 
in the eternal counsels of God, this decree to elect preceded 
the decree to create; so that God deliberately brought the 
human race into existence with the express purpose of 
damning the greater part of it. This doctrine imputes 
to God a cruelty more fiendish than even a Kaiser and 
his minions were able to devise ; yet as a climax its advo- 
cates have the impudence to say that this is all for the 
^^glory'' of God! The blasphemy of such a doctrine is 
even greater than its horror. Where is the loving Father 
of Jesus, who does not will that one of his little ones shall 
perish ? Ah, says the Calvinist, the ^ ^little ones'' of Jesus 
are the "elect" of Paul. But, dear sir, who told you so ? 
K"either Jesus nor Paul, of a certainty. 

Election of some to life and of some to death is a doc- 
trine utterly incompatible with the conception of God as 
Father, and not easy to reconcile even with the idea of 
God as King. A father must have no favorites among his 
children; a king should treat all his subjects with impar- 
tial justice. True, fathers do have favorite children and 
kings are often unjust; but that is because men are fal- 
lible and peccable. We recognize and condemn such 
things as shortcomings, failures to realize our highest 
ideals of even earthly relations; how then do we dare at- 
tribute them to God? According to Jesus, man is by 
nature the child of God and never loses this status, though 
he may ignore or deny it. However far the country into 
which he may wander, it is always open to him to return 
to his Father and be reinstated in home and love. The- 
ology sees in man one who is by nature a child of wrath. 



176 FUNDxVMENTALS OF CHKISTIAIVflTy 

the object of God's abhorrence and vengeance. A few be- 
come adopted sons, by the Father's choice, just as, in Ro- 
man law, one not a son by blood became one in law by 
act of the paterfamilias. 

If snch could be shown to be the teaching of Paul, he 
could no longer be accepted as a religious teacher of the 
Christian world. The God of orthodoxy can no more be 
ours than the German God. The day is long past when 
such a theology can be beKeved. We know today that 
Jesus understood God better than John Calvin did. But 
it is by no means certain that such theology is contained 
in Paul's writings, fairly interpreted ; he has had fathered 
upon him many things that he never taught, for which he 
should not be held responsible. Paul does teach a doctrine 
I of election, not an election to eternal life or death, but an 
election to service. God has chosen all men to salvation, 
but he has chosen a certain few to be the special means of 
making salvation known and available to the rest. In one 
sense all Israel was so chosen, ^^because to them were com- 
mitted the oracles of God." The divine election was not 
for the salvation of the elect, but for the salvation of men 
generally. In Abraham, not merely his descendants, but 
all the nations were to be blessed. 

Theology has hitherto been a deductive science like ge- 
ometry, a system logically perfect, a chain of inferences 
from a few definitions and axioms. Theology should be 
an inductive science, like physics or chemistry. Human 
I experience of what God and man are should furnish its 
fundamental material, from which its first principles 
should be obtained by induction. Deduction should be 
limited to inferences pro])erly drawn from these materials. 
So, for example, a doctrine of divine decrees cannot be 
deducted from assumed facts about God and his plans, or 
metaphysical speculations about his mental processes^ or 
from assumptions regarding a divine ^^nature" of which 
we know less than nothing; what God has ^^decreed" must 



>AtTL 1^111^ CHlEtlSTlAN EABBl 177 

be learned by patient induction from tlie l^t^s of nature 
and history, in which he has given us the only trustworthy 
revelation of himself. The Bible is of course a most im- 
portant part of this historical revelation, but it is not the 
whole. 



CHAPTEK IX 
PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 



It is in regard to the forgiveness of sins that Jesus and 
Paul differ most. So little was Jesus a theologian, that in 
regard to all the ^^great doctrines" — esteemed so essential 
by theologians, ancient and modern, that to deny them is 
to deprive one of right to call himself a Christian — ^the 
nominal founder of Christianity either said nothing at all, 
or so little and so vaguely as to make it impossible to 
say just what he did mean. Impossible, of course, for 
any but a theologian. And the theologians by no means 
agree among themselves as to what he did mean, while 
agreeing that he meant something. It is sheer fact, with 
no whit of exaggeration, that if w^e had for the documents 
of our religion only the Gospels, nobody could formulate 
a Scriptural doctrine of the Trinity, Predestination, Orig- 
inal Sin, Atonement or Justification by faith. What most 
people call ^^the gospeF' is not in the Gospels. 

It is to Paul that we must turn for material out of whioh 
to formulate these doctrines. He teaches a doctrine of 
Atonement,, in distinction from Jesus, (^) who teaches only 
the fact that the Atonement is supposed to explain and 
justify — the fact, namely, that God forgives sins. Jesus 
teaches nothing formally and systematically, but his ideas 

(^) It is no doubt true that theologians, having drawn from ex- 
traneous sources a doctrine of vicarious sacrifice and expiation of sin, 
have read this back into some of the words of Jesus. It is incon- 
trovertible, however, that, had we the words of Jesus only, no doc- 
trine of vicarious atonement would ever have been invented. 

178 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGL^lN 179 

are unmistakable. Forgiveness of sins, as he looks at it, 
is the restoration of the relation of Father and sons which 
has been interrupted, but not destroyed, by wrong-doing. 
The Old Testament correctly represents this transaction 
under several different figures : 

Yea, thou wilt cast into the depths of the sea all our sins. — 
Mi. 7:19. 

For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back. — Isa. 
38:17. 

Thou didst take away the iniquity of thy people, 

Didst cover all their sins. — Ps. 85 :2. 

I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions. 

And, as a cloud, thy sins. — Isa. 44:22. 

In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of 
David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for 
uncleanness. — Zech. 13:1. 

For I will forgive their guilt and their sin will I remember 
no more. — Jer. 31 :34. 

As a consequence of the divine forgiveness, we are re- 
ceived into the same intimate and loving relations with 
our Father as if we had never sinned. Jesus says nothing 
that implies any power in forgiveness to restore lost in- 
nocence, or undo the effects of sin, or annul penalty. The 
father of the parable could and did restore the wanderer 
to his place as son in the household, but not all his love 
could restore the innocence of youth or give back those 
wasted years or make good the squandered inheritance. 

Forgiveness is a personal act; it restores status; it does 
not directly affect character ; it cannot alter the past. The- 
ologians have confused personal relationship, always sub- 
ject to change, with accomplished facts that are unchange- 
able. They have not discriminated the unrighteousness of 
sin from its penalty, and popular theology shows, as might 
be expected, more confusion of ideas than systematic. 
Jesus sharply makes these discriminations. He shows us 



ISO FUI^BAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

that God is willing to forgive just as soon as the erring 
•child will let himself be forgiven; and his forgiveness is 
free and unconditional^ restoring the child completely to 
his former status. More than this God cannot do; the 
sinner must bear the penalty of his misdeeds ; and he must 
painfully work out for himself a new character. Here 
God can help ; he cannot give. 

Jesus shows that the forgiveness of God is exactly like 
man's in quality, when he commands his disciples to for- 
give one another. We are to forgive our erring brother 
^^until seventy times seven/' that is, without limit. And 
the reason assigned is, because God's mercy to us is limit- 
less. The principle is stated in many forms, of which 
this is one : 

But love your enemies and do them good, 
And lend never despairing; 
And your reward will be great, 
And you will be sons of the Most High ! 

For he is kind toward the unthankful and evil.(^) 

Even the one word of Jesus that seems to indicate an 
implacable attitude on God's part toward any, 

The blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be 
forgiven, 

is misunderstood when it is taken in that sense. This 
sin is unforgivable, not because the sin is so heinous that 
the mercy of God here reaches its impassable limit, but 
because the nature of the sin is proof of a fixed state of 
wickedness and hatred of God that makes reception of 
forgiveness impossible. One who blasphemes the Holy 
Spirit desires no forgiveness, will not let himself be for- 
given. Here is also the key to the parable of the Pharisee 
and Publican. God was no less willing to forgive one 
than the other; but the Publican sought forgiveness and 
obtained it, while the proud Pharisee Avould not be for- 

n Luke 6:36. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 181 

given since he had no consciousness that he needed for- 
giveness. (^) 

When we forgive a man who has wronged us^ we do not 
require him to pay any penalty, either in person or by 
proxy. We just forgive him, take him back into our con- 
fidence and love as if nothing had happened, and strive 
so to forget what he has done that in time it fades out of 
memory altogether. But along comes the theologian and 
tells us that analogies drawn from human forgiveness are 
misleading when applied to God's. God, the theologian 
assures us, is a Being of infinite holiness, and sin against 
him is an infinite wrong, deserving therefore an infinite 
penalty. And God cannot forgive as man does, for, be- 
cause his holiness is infinite, somebody must pay this in- 
finite penalty. But why? What do we really hnow of 
these ^^infinites'^ about which the theologian talks so glibly ? 
Theology juggles with words as children play with ^^jack- 
stones.'' A good part of theology is no more than an in- 
tellectual game, and among its big words, with their vagnie, 
shadowy, indefinite meanings, one searches in vain for 
something like reality and certain knowledge. 

If a mere sinful man is under ethical obligation to for- 
give his brother seventy times seven, is a holy Being en- 
tirely freed from that obligation merely because he is 
^^infinite," whatever that may mean ? The holier a Beina' 
is, and the more ^^infinite" he is, the more ethically obli- 
gated he should seemi to be to forgive, and if his holiness 
is perfect his forgiveness should be boundless. That is 
the only sound reasoning from what v/e know of the 
finite to the unknown and unknowable ^^infinite." And 
when we speak of God's ^^obligation" we mean, of course, 
an obligation from within himself, that he can be nothing 
else than what he is, perfectly good, hence perfectly mer- 
ciful. Why is there an ethical obligation on man to for- 

(1) Luke 18:10 sq. 



182 FUNDAME]NTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

give ? Jesus says, because God forgives. As our great 
poet has it, mercy 

is an attribute to God himself^ 
And earthly power doth then show likest God^s 
When mercy tempers justice. 

Jesus even declares God's forgiveness to be exactly like 
man's, for he bade his disciples pray, ^Torgive us our 
debts, as we have forgiven our debtors" ; and in addition 
assured them : 

For if 3^ou forgive men their trespasses, 

Your Heavenly Father will also forgive you.(^) 

And in these cases the words ^^as" and ^^also" mean ^^in 
the same manner.'' 

II 

One of the chief functions of Jesus, the greatest in the 
mind of Paul, was to assure men of the love of God and 
his willingness to forgive sin. But Jesus did not change 
the nature of God; he only revealed God more fully to 
the world. He did not devise any new machinery for the 
forgiveness of sins ; he only taught men to rely more con- 
fidently on their Heavenly Father's love. God always 
forgave sins ; he forgives sins now ; he always will forgive 
sins. He forgives because he is God, our Father in 
Heaven. And Jesus is as explicit in what he teaches 
about the ground of forgiveness, as he is about the fact: 
God does not forgive because sins have been expiated, but 
because he loves us. He does not hate men; he never 
hated men; he never needed to be placated; because he 
loves all men and has always loved them. 

Not only Jesus, but apostles and prophets, speak with 
one voice in this matter. ^^Herein is love: not that we 
loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the 

(') Matt. 6:14. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 183 

propitiation for our sins."(^) ^^As I live^ says the Lord 
Jehovah, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; 
but that the wicked turn from his way and live."(^) Of 
course there are texts that can "be given a different sense, 
but the prevailing testimony of Old Testament and New 
is to the abounding love and mercy of God. The heresy 
of all heresies is the doctrine that God was once in a state 
of vengeful wrath against man, that demanded somehow to 
be appeased. There was never any excuse for such a 
heresy, when the Scriptures explicitly declared that God 
was never so estranged from man that He needed to be 
reconciled. The orthodox theology since the time of Au- 
gustine, and perhaps before also, has been a criminal libel 
on the nature of God — criminal because the theologians 
deliberately closed eyes and ears to the declaration, ^^God 
is love." For their crime there is no excuse, though there 
must be forgiveness. 

Paul has been made the scapegoat for this theological 
crime; theologians have professed to draw most of their 
material from him. But Paul is not gTiilty; at least, he 
is only partially guilty; much that is found in historic 
Paulinism is not Pauline. The core of Paul's ^^gospel," 
as we have seen, was a message of forgiveness and redemp- 
tion through trust in Christ, not through deeds of law. 
^^The word of reconciliation" was an inseparable element 
of the Pauline gospel from the first, but it was only gradu- 
ally that the simple gospel became a theological system. 
For their perversion of the apostle's teaching, the the- 
ologians of a later age were able to make plausible appeal 
to his fundamental idea of God, as Sovereign, Lawgiver, 
Judge. He w^as so conscious of his own failure to attain 
salvation by works of Law that at times he thought God 
was angry with him, and with all other men as like sin- 
ners. An angry God must be placated; the sacredness 

n 1 John 4:10. 
(-) Eze. 33:11. 



184 FUjN^DAMENTALS of CHRISTIANITY 

of Law demanded payment of penalty by somebody, if not 
by the sinner himself, then by somebody else in his behalf. 
So God set Christ forth ^^as a propitiation through faith 
in his blood, for the exhibition of his righteousness." (^) 
God, in the apprehension of Paul, could forgive sins only 
in view of the fact that Christ through his vicarious death 
had paid the penalty of sin. Through an act of trust in 
Jesus, the merit of this sacrifice is transferred to the sin- 
ner and his sins are forgiven. This is historic Paulinism. 

But Jesus says nothing about his agency in procuring 
the forgiveness of sins. He does not so much as hint that 
God is ready to forgive only because of something that he 
has done or is about to do. In all the teaching of Jesus, 
man's soul stands face-to-face with God. Immediate com- 
munion with God, unmediated forgiveness by a Father 
who loves, was the great Message of Jesus to the world : 
I say not to you that I will pray the Father for you. 
For the Father himself loves you.(^) 

A doctrine of the atonement must be, therefore, largely 
extra-scriptural and entirely outside of the teachings of 
Jesus. Consequently attempts to state such a doctrine 
have been many and contradictory. Only a single saying 
of Jesus can be fairly quoted in favor of any theory, and 
that is the remark that he had come ^^to give his life a 
ransom for many.'' Even if we say "give his life'' is the 
same thing as "give his death," which is more than doubt- 
ful exegesis, is it credible that Jesus meant to teach that 
crude military theory of the atonement held by some of 
the early Fathers: that the devil had acquired possession 
of mankind through sin, so that men were his lawful cap- 
tives, and Jesus could purchase their release only by dying 
as a ransom for them? Or that hardly less crude mer- 
cantile theory, like the balancing of accounts in a heavenly 
ledger — so much blood of Christ over against so much sin 



(M Rom. 3:25. 
(') John 16:26. 



& 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAI^ 185 

of man ? If not these things, then what did Jesus mean ? 
We do not know.(^) It is an isolated saying of his, a 
metaphor on which no light is thrown by other words. But 
how slender basis for a doctrine of atonement, this single 
metaphor of doubtful significance! 

This is the only saying of Jesus that may be fairly 
quoted as bearing on a doctrine of atonement; but there 
is another saying that has been unfairly pressed into serv- 
ice. In the accoimt of the institution of the eucharist, 
Mark quotes Jesus as saying of the cup, ^^This is the blood 
of the covenant, which is poured out for many.'^ The 
other SynojDtics, with slight variations of no particular sig- 
nificance (Luke's ^^new" covenant is the most striking) 
give the same words; but Matthew alone adds, ^^unto re- 
mission of sins.'' As to this apparent connecting of the 
forgiveness of sins with the death of Jesus, two things 
are to be said: first, that these words, occurring only in 
the latest Synoptic, are almost certainly the accretion of 
tradition to what Jesus actually said ; and, secondly, even 
if Jesus actually did speak these words, it is possible, even 
probable, that he meant nothing more than that the shed- 
ding of his blood, the offering of his life, would result in 
bringing to men deliverance from sin — which all Chris- 
tians admit to be the fact. 

For no means can be conceived so potent as his own 
voluntary and guiltless death, by which Jesus could cre- 
ate in his followers then and for all time that lofty type 
of character which gladly renounces self and welcomes 
death for others as the highest privilege, the crown of 
Christian service. It is the spectacle of that death that 

(^) There can be little doubt that this saying of Jesus is an echo 
of Isaiah, whose depiction of the suffering Servant of Jehovah made 
a deep impression on his mind. As to the fact of the life and death 
of Jesus constituting a **ransom" for men, that is to say, actual 
deliverance from sin, no follower of his would dispute it. Jesus 
has delivered men from sin; he has reconciled men to God; being 
lifted up, he has drawn all men to himself. But how? That is 
where men differ. 



186 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

has ever since led men to repentance^ change of mind and 
will toward God and man, a definite break with the old 
life and the entering on a new life, marked by unselfish 
love. And this new life, which Jesns came to impart to 
men abundantly, is salvation, deliverance from sin. For 
unselfish love is deliverance of man from all evil and the 
rock foundation of all good. 

But while Jesus cannot fairly be made to support any 
theory of atonement, Paul's teaching may quite plausibly 
be made to support the Grotian or governmental theory, 
whether the apostle so intended or not. His argument in 
Rom. 3 :21-26 is very like the Grotian demonstration that 
the death of Christ made it ^^safe" for the Ruler of the 
world to forgive sin without impairing the majesty of his 
law. But nothing is clearer to any student of theological 
thought than that it would be wasted time to advance crit- 
ical objections against any theory of the atonement, for 
the various doctrines confute each other in turn. Grotius 
undermines Anselm, and Abelard and Socinus undermine 
both. Efforts have been made in recent years to construct 
some sort of ^^ethicaF' theory, that will combine the merits 
of all and avoid the defects of each, but with no very grati- 
fying results. 

The difficulty with all theories regarding atonement is 
with the very idea of atonement, if that means (as it 
nearly always does) anything like expiation of sin, trans- 
ference of penalty, and other like notions, which are 
neither Christian nor Jewish, but pure pagan. IsTothing 
but ignorance of the real nature of ^^moral laws" could 
have led men to suppose that ethical penalty could be 
either escaped or transferred, l^othing but such ignorance 
could have made men suppose that extra-ethical sanctions 
of a future order (the pains of hell) were necessary to 
ensure a penalty for sin, but for which the ways of evil 
might be trodden with impunity. Orthodoxy appreciates 
neitheT' sin nor virtue. Theories of the atonement fail 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 187 

because they are pitched in too low an ethical key. There 
was doubtless a time when men were inclined to take a 
too easy view of moral evil and to regard their transgres- 
sions as mere peccadillos. It then did them good to be 
told of a God whose anger burned against sinners, and of 
a forgiveness of sins that was possible only because some 
one had borne the sinner's penalty for him. But Jesus 
gave us higher teaching regarding God, lifted the race 
permanently to a loftier ethical level, and made these 
crude views henceforth untenable. It has taken many 
centuries fully to realize this, and a large part of the fol- 
lowers of Jesus have not yet realized it, but are still ob- 
sessed by the ideas of a darker time. 

Ill 

Paul's doctrine of the atonement, in its simplest form, 
was, ^^He died for our sins according to the Scriptures.'^ 
But what did Jesus say of his death and its significance ? 
In most instances he speaks of his coming death merely 
as a fact. Only in one case, already considered, do his 
words point to any significance in his death. His plain- 
est words about the meaning and effect of his death are: 

And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. 

So must the Son of Man be lifted up, 
That everyone who trusts in him may not perish, 

But have eternal Life. (^) 

When you shall lift up the Son of Man 
Then you will know that I am he.(-) 

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will win to myself 
all men.(^) 

But the utmost that Jesus says in such cases is that his 



C) John 3:14, 15. 
( = ) 8:28. 
(^) 12:32. 



188 FITNDAMEJ^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

death will convince men that he is indeed the Messiah, 
the Saviour of men, and that the eflFect of his death will 
therefore be to draw all men to him. So far as this bears 
I on the atonement, it is distinctly favorable to the ^^moral 
influence" theory, which Abelard was the first to propound 
and Horace Bnshnell has been foremost to advocate in 
our day. It is not his death which Jesus says will have 
power to save men. but his words : 

I say these things to you that you may be saved. (^) 
The words I have spoken to you are spirit and life. (-) 

His own view of the significance of his death, Jesus 
probably gave most definitely in his parable of the vine- 
yard. (^) As Son of God, climax of a long line of proph- 
ets, he was killed because men's selfish interests were op- 
posed to his mission. Death was the ine^dtable end of his 
work. To be sure, a single parable should not be assumed 
to give an exhaustive exposition of truth, but at any rate, 
there is no hint of expiation or ransom here. 

It is maintained by some that Jesus does hint at the 
Pauline doctrine of atonement, if he does not explicitly 
teach it, in what he says of the cross. Jesus has two say- 
ings, and only two, about the cross, which he repeats in 
varied forms at different times. The first has already 
been cited: it is about his own cross, and it has, as we 
have just seen, no sacrificial or propitiatory significance. 
The other saying has to do with the cross of his disciples : 
'^Whosoever does not bear his own cross and come after 
me, cannot be my disciple." Man crucified with Christ, 
not Christ crucified for man, is the doctrine of the cross 
in the teaching of Jesv^. The true doctrine of the cross 
therefore is the supreme beauty of a life of self-devotion 
to others — self-surrender so complete that it does not 
shrink from ^^tlie last full measure of devotion"; and that 

n~John 5:34. 

(') John 6:63. 

(^) Matt. 21:33-44. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 189 

all who would have fellowship with the joys and glories 
of the Kingdom must follow Jesus in the hard and thorny 
path of utter renunciation of self. 

The same idea fills a large place in Paul's writings. ^^I 
am crucified with Christ/' he tells the Galatians;(^) and 
to the Corinthians he speaks of ^^always carrying about 
in the body the dying of Jesus." (^) He elaborates the 
thought in many of his letters : he is to die with Christ in 
order to rise with him;(^) he follows after, so that he may 
know the sufferings of Christ and be conformed to his 
death ;(^) through Christ the world is crucified to him and 
he to the world ;(^) and he insists that our hope of sharing 
the glory of Christ is based on the fact that we have first 
shared the passion of Christ's self-sacrificing love. (^) But 
this doctrine of the cross has no relation to atonement. 
Christian people have, in fact, nearly evacuated this say- 
ing of all significance by their silly custom of calling every 
disagreeable duty ^^taking up the cross." The metaphor 
cannot be misunderstood save by wilfulness; it is what 
Jesus called on other occasions ^Pronouncing life" or self. 
The cross was the instrument of death, and the condemned 
criminal bore his own cross to the place of execution, as 
Jesus did. 

This doctrine of the cross is fundamental in the teach- 
ing of Jesus, but though it may properly enough be de- 
scribed as a doctrine of sacrifice, it is not a doctrine of 
expiation. It may even be called vicarious sacrifice, for 
though Jesus does not say a word about expiation, he does 
say much about the redemptive love that always involves 
the sutTering of the righteous for the wicked, the innocent 
for and with the guilty. And this is because he con- 

(^) Gal. 2:20. 

C') 2 Cor. 4:10. 

C) Rom. 6:4, 8. 

(*) Phil. 3:10. 

(') Gal. 6:14. 

(«) 2 Cor. 1;7; Rom. 8:17. 



190 FUXDAMEXTALS OP CHKISTIAjS^ITY 

ceives salvation in social terms^ not in individual. Vicari- 
ous suffering runs all through life, and finds its supreme 
expression upon the cross of Calvary. 

But in Paul's view of Christ's death some find expi- 
atory significance. His doctrine of atonement was worked 
out to solve his own personal problem, which he assumed 
to be the problem of all other men, because all other men 
are like himself, sinners. And that problem was, How 
could God's Anointed die a shameful death? How could 
God condemn his Son to the cross ? It seemed to Paul 
that no other explanation was possible, or at least that no 
other was adequate, except that Christ's death was for the 
sins of men. The Jewish sacrifices suggested a ready ex- 
planation, one that was indubitable in the mind of one 
trained under that system : Jesus was the one great Offer- 
ing by which the sins of mankind were expiated. ^^He 
bore our sins in his own body on the tree," as prophets 
had foretold, as Temple sacrifices had prefigured. 

But Paul's personal problem does not concern us in the 
least. To us it appears natural, not abhorrent, that Jesus 
should die. Even if it were no more than the death of 
any martyr, the death of Jesus rewrote in red all that he 
had ever taught. And so the reasoning of Paul does not 
fit our case, and therefore it fails to convince. Especially 
do we revolt from his idea of sacrificial expiation. The 
whole notion of appeasing God by the sacrifice of animals, 
the entire machinery of altars and priests and rivers of 
blood, has not a point of contact with the present day think- 
ing and feeling. The moment we make an effort of imag- 
ination to realize what it really was, our gorge rises. 
Paul appeals to a state of mind that has forever passed 
away — at least, among civilized peoples, though his the- 
ology may still be helpful to African savages. 

Sacrifices are a fine mixture of popular superstition 
and priestly imposture. Only superstition could have 
made so many nations for so many ages imagine that the 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAX 191 

slaughtering of animals might propitiate a divine Being, 
or remove guilt from a man. And only priestly imposture 
could have been equal to persuading men of all races and 
colors for so many generations that God or the gods had 
ever commanded men to offer sacrifices. (^) AVhenever 
and wherever men have achieved a stage of civilization 
that enabled them to think rationally, sacrificial systems 
have inevitably withered and died. Beginning in the twi- 
light of the race, they could not bear the light of noon- 
day. They were too physically repulsive and too intel- 
lectually crude to live in the light. The whole round of 
Temple services in the days of Jesus and Paul would be 
imspeakably shocking to the twentieth century. Reader, 
did you ever visit a slaughter-house? Have you ever 
smelled burning meat ? A God would be a strange Being 
whose eyes were pleased with such sickening sights, or 
who found in that horrid, nauseating stench a ^^sweet 
savor." The whole thing is so stupidly absurd as to be 
unworthy of serious refutation. Ifo God that we could 
possibly love and worship ever devised such a method of 
approach to him and winning his good graces. (') 

Paul's idea of law, of penalty, of expiation, offends the 
modern sense of justice and contradicts our ethical values 
at every point of contact. Without caricature, it may be 
compared to ideas that prevail in certain police circles 
to-day. A sensational crime is committed; the public is 
greatly roused and demands detection and punishment of 

(^) Judaism was better than the pagan faiths, in that it never 
countenanced the offering of human beings in sacrifice. Readers of 
Montaigne wiU recall an instance that he mentions: ''Amurath at 
the taking of Isthmus, sacrificed six hundred young Grecians to hi>; 
father's soul : to the end their blood might serve as a propitiation to 
exculpate the sins of the deceased." Essays, bk. I, ch. xxix. 

(-) The judicious reader will observe that nothing is said above 
that is not fully implied by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews: 
"For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should 
take away sins'' (10:4). The injudicious reader will, of course, 
perceive nothing of the sort, not even after it has been pointed out 
to him. 



192 FUXDAMEXTALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

the criminal. This the police are unable to accomplish, 
but obviously something must be done to silence public 
clamor; so they ^'frame up'' a case against some one who 
can most plausibly be made the scapegoat. He is con- 
victed by perjury, the public cry is silenced, the majesty 
of the law has been vindicated, justice is satisfied ! 

But we are no longer content with that brand of "jus- 
tice." We insist that the guilt of the guilty cannot be 
expiated, justice cannot be satisfied, by the punishment of 
the innocent. Yet our theology continues to teach that 
the Almighty could find no better expedient to save men 
than to "frame up" a case against his o^vn Son and put 
to death the innocent for the gTiilty. And that which 
fills us with horror when done by man to man, we praise 
and glorify when done by God to God. Does the orthodox 
Christian ever think? 

We have come of late to understand that there are many 
survivals of primitive ideas and customs in Christian 
doctrine and institutions. The Pauline teaching regard- 
ing atonement is an excellent example. He inherited his 
thought from Judaism, where it is a palpable survival of 
the clan stage of Israel's development, when the clan and 
the family were the social units, and any member of fam- 
ily or clan, or the whole of either, might be held responsible 
for an individual's wrong act and could pay the penalty. 
Transference of penalty, so unthinkable to us, was then 
normal and usual. Every group must bear the sins of its 
members, and conversely the individuals must suffer with 
and for the group. Ideas persist longer than institutions ; 
and while, in modern society, group responsibility has 
given way in law to individual responsibility, ideas de- 
rived from group responsibility are still potent in theology. 
We find it difficult to persuade ourselves that such savage 
punishment could be inflicted on an entire family for the 
sin of one member, as the story of Achan describes, and 
we refuse to believe that God had anvthins: more to do 



PAUI. THi: SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIA]^ 1\)6 

Avith the matter than he had with the slaughter of the 
citizens of Louvain because a few of them were accused 
of ^^sniping" at the German invaders. The notion of 
transferred or substituted penalty cannot be adjusted to 
our present social status, in which individual rights and 
individual responsibilities are so overemphasized that so- 
cial responsibilities and duties are little felt and social 
sins not at all. Transference of penalty cannot happen 
to-day ; not only so, it is quite inconceivable. 

Only a believer in universal salvation can with logical 
consistency, hold the doctrine of penal substitution. If 
Christ actually has borne our penalty, then God cannot 
justly hold us to further penalties for our sins. Therefore 
all men must be saved. There is no escape from the con- 
clusion if the premise be maintained; universalism is the 
rigorously logical deduction from the substitutionary the- 
ory of Christ's death. 

And the modern ethical sense declares that sin can no 
more be expiated than transferred. Expiation of sin is 
impossible, was always impossible, unimaginable even. 
Nobody has ever been able to show, nobody will ever be 
able to explain, how a given quantity of suffering can 
equal a given quantity of sin. ISTeither sin nor suffering 
can be measured quantitatively, and if each could 
be exactly weighed or measured or computed nobody 
can show how one can be the equivalent of the other. The 
mediaeval attempt to establish a money value for crime 
(Wehrgelt)^ was not more irrational, nor was the sliding 
scale for indulgences proclaimed by Tetzel a greater scan- 
dal. Sin cannot be escaped by expiation; it can be es- 
caped only by being repented, forsaken, hated. The 
consequences of sin are indelible; the effect of an evil act 
cannot be undone, even by divine omnipotence. Suffer- 
ing is the inescapable consequence of sin, penalty, but not 
punishment. Society only evades the problem of moral 
evil when it hangs or imprisons a wrong-doer; the only 



194 FU]SrDx\ME]S"TALS OF CHRISTIAXITY 

solution of the problem is to remake him into a doer of 
right. God cannot dispose of sin by sending the sinner 
to hell ; God must make the sinner righteous. 

Any theory of atonement is impossible that does not 
take into account these ethical ideas of our own day. So 
far as sin is conceived as a personal offense against God, 
his forgiveness may also be conceived as removing the 
barrier that sin has made between man and God. But 
we can no longer receive the teaching that any sort of 
atonement or forgiveness makes it possible for God to 
relieve man of the other effects of his sin. These the 
sinner must bear, and others must bear with him ; for, as 
no man lives to himself, so no man sins to himself. The 
worst thing about moral evil, indeed, is not its effect on 
the individual who sins, but its social consequences. Its 
effect on his innocent fellows quite outweighs its effect on 
himself. The sooner w^e awake to the fact that the past 
is unalterable by the forgiveness of God, the better for our 
religious life and the better for the prospect of greater 
reality in our preaching. Untold mischief has been done 
by the proclamation from ten thousand pulpits that re- 
pentance and the forgiveness of sins wipes out all the con- 
sequences of sin. Hymns like Cowper's ^^There is a 
fountain filled with blood,'' have led thousands into a 
religious fool's paradise. Far truer are the words of 
Omar: 

The Moving Finger writes ; and having writ 
Moves on: nor all thy Piety and Wit 

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, 
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it. 

The present is ours, to make a new record; the past is 
past. Whoever teaches men otherw^ise, teaches lies. 

It is often made a reproach to ^^liberal" Christians that, 
in denying the efficacy of blood-atonement they take a light 
and inadequate view of sin. But what is often called an 
inadequate sense of sin will turn out on examination to 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 195 

be merely a sense of diflFerent sin — an appreciation of the 
utter inadequacy of an idea of sin that confines it entirely 
to wrong relations to a God whom one has not seen, with 
a bland unconsciousness of sin that consists in wrong re- 
lations to the brother whom one has seen. And as for 
^^light'^ views of sin, which is the lighter, that which in- 
sists the sinner must forever bear the burden of conse- 
quences that accrue from his evil, or that which says he 
may escape the consequences utterly by a bath in the 
^^fountain filled with blood'^ ? No, it is your orthodox 
theologian or preacher with his theory of blood-atonement 
who takes sin too lightly. 1 1 is your evangelist who ex- 
horts sinners to come and be washed white in the blood 
of the Lamb, who takes an inadequate view of sin. God 
has never promised to whitewash moral evil and call it 
good, whatever presumptuous and silly men may have 
rashly promised in his name. Poetic phrases of prophets 
that expressed religious emotion have been made into sci- 
entific theological definitions, with consequences disastrous 
to theolog;^" and religion. 

But, after all, the great untruth of the vicarious sacri- 
fice is that by representing the crucifixion of the Son of 
God as ^^substitutionary,'' theology has excused the sons 
of God from that daily dying on the cross which Jesus 
declared to be the essence of discipleship. 



IV 

The difference between Jesus and Paul regarding for- 
giveness of sins stands out clearly when we consider their 
terminology. The word continually on the lips of Jesus 
in connection with sin is ^^forgive'' — in the Greek a(pir.'^.ii, 
which means to send away, let go, disregard, and was 
used in classical Greek as a legal term to denote release 
from contract, debt, or indictment. Paul uses the same 



19G FUI^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

terminology a few times, (^) thus showing that the idea 
of remission of sins was not unfamiliar to him. But if 
not unfamiliar, it seems to have been unwelcome ; he pre- 
ferred something quite different. The verb Sixaioco 
which Paul uses to denote man's deliverance from sin and 
guilt, occurs in his writings 27 times, not to mention 
its cognates, Sixaicooig (3) and 8ixaico|ia (5). Law 
knows no forgiveness ; law either convicts of sin or acquits 
of guilt. Jesus uses 8ixai6(o only once or twice in 
speaking of man's relations to God, and then apparently 
not in a forensic sense. (^) Forgiveness, utter and final, 
not acquittal by legal fiction, is his idea of God's way of 
dealing with the sinner. A Father may forgive the guilty ; 
a judge must either convict or find some expedient to 
acquit. The prayer of Jesus on the cross, ^Tather, for- 
give them, for they know not what they do," can find no 
place in the Pauline theory of justification. Law can 
never admit ignorance to be an excuse for guilt or a reason 
for acquittal. 

The same distinction follows in the ideas of ^^righteous- 
ness" Sixaioawi'] the status of being ^^just" in the 
eight of God. Jesus everywhere, but especially in the 
Sermon on the Mount, speaks of a righteousness that is 
personal and essential, a real righteousness that consists 
of right character and conduct. His idea of righteousness 
is a relation of reverence, trust and love to a Father in 
Heaven, which cannot but express itself in obedience. ^^Be 
perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect," is an ideal 
rather than a law, a standard but not a statute. Paul's 
^^righteousness" is not primarily personal and essential, 
but legal, and therefore unreal ; it is a fictitious righteous- 
ness that is '^reckoned" to us, or with which we are 
^^clothed" — not ours, but Christ's, bestowed on us by a 
legal fiction. ^^Christ has been made unto us wisdom 

C) For example, Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14. 
(^) Matt. 12:37. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 197 

from God, and righteousness and sanctification and re- 
demption.'^ (^) 

Jesns teaches the insufficiency of mere formal obedience 
to laWj such as the Pharisees rendered, and gives a new 
and spiritual interpretation of the Decalogue — ^^I am come 
not to destroy, but to fulfil/' fill full, complete. He holds 
up to men a higher ethical standard than they had known, 
and then holds them up to the standard. But Paul in- 
sists that the Law was not intended to be kept, that man 
is unable to obey it — the Law was given to awaken men's 
sense of sin, to teach them their inability to obey, and so, 
like a tutor, to bring them to Christ. (") So, while Jesus 
insists that his disciples must obey the Law, in a right- 
eousness exceeding that of Scribes and Pharisees, (^) Paul 
sweeps the Law altogether away — Christ has abolished it, 
nailed it to the cross, and made a sport of it. (*) There 
may be a way of ^^reconciling" these differing views of 
the Law, but their likeness is not striking. 

Paul represents the process of salvation as wholly of 
the grace of God, with which the sinner has nothing to 
do but either to accept or reject it. Jesus represents sal- 
vation as the result of man's effort together with God: 
^^By your endurance you will win your lives," i, e.y your 
true lives, eternal Life. Life comes from God, but at- 
tainment of Life is man's work. Eternal Life is God's 
gift, as is all that we possess, but it is also a self -creation 
through self -conquest. 

I am the master of my fate, 
I am the captain of my soul, 

is not a pagan sentiment, as has sometimes been said, but 
profoundly Christian, though its author never imderstood 
that fact. Posing as pure pagan, he was Christian in spite 
of himself. 

T^l Cor. 1:30. 

{-) Gal. 3:24; Rom. 7:7. 

(•) Matt. 5:20. 

(*) Col. 2:14. If). 



198 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

In a word, Jesus came, not to satisfy divine justice and 
confer a fictitious righteousness, but to save sinners by 
making them truly righteous. The atonement is not a 
legal, but a vital process. God's forgiveness makes the 
forgiven heart the home of the love that forgives; it 
brings with it the promise and potency of a new life; it 
regenerates. Its result is not the imputation of a right- 
eousness that does not really exist, but the impartation of 
a righteousness that comes really to exist. The teaching 
of Paul is not false, but inadequate ; it does not represent 
the ideas of God, sin, penalty, forgiveness, righteousness, 
at their highest, as Jesus has helped us to apprehend 
them ; instead, he gives us older and less perfect ideas. 

Yet, if we see in PauFs doctrine of justification by faith • 
and imputed righteousness, not a dogma to be accepted 
in the precise form of words in which he sets it forth, 
but an illustration from legal principles of his day of an 
eternal principle, we shall get from justification by faith 
and its imputation of righteousness all that it was de- 
sigTLcd to convey. To do this, we must lay the emphasis 
on the faith, rather than on the justification. It is justifi- 
cation by faith, and not by works of law, as Paul so vehem- 
ently insists, because works are a product of spiritual con- 
dition, not its cause. Faith, trust in Jesus as Deliverer, 
the soul committing itself to him as Teacher and Master, 
marks the beginning of a new life of God in the man. 
Henceforth he is a new creation, reborn from above, to 
grow in the grace and knowledge of God through the power 
of his indwelling Spirit. Every man who has had a gen- 
uine Christian experience knows exactly what this means, 
but to one who lacks that experience such words will ever 
appear foolishness. 

The real difficulty in Paul's doctrine of a forensic jus- 
tification, that depended on an ^^imputed" righteousness, 
was not felt in his day or for long afterward, but is very 
serious to us. We have come to see that it is an unworthy 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 199 

idea of God to suppose that he employs a mere ^^dodge" 
to save men. Our idea of God does not admit of his deal- 
ing in fictions. God is not merely truthful, he is Truth. 
No artificial, forensic expedient is conceivable in the do- 
main of ethical and spiritual relations. If God declares 
a man just, if he acquits him of sin, it must be because 
the man is just, is no longer guilty. And that is exactly 
what forgiveness means. When man turns from sin and 
God forgives, he is no longer guilty, and therefore he must 
be acquitted. God judges him according to what he has 
become and is henceforth to be, not according to what he 
was. It is not legal fiction; it is ethical fact. But when 
we have thus evaluated Paul's forensic illustration, in the 
light of our highest ethical knowledge, the essential thing 
in justification by faith remains : There is such a thing as 
trust in Jesus the Christ, so vital and compelling that it 
grips a man's very soul and makes him completely over, 
reconstitutes his ideals and aims, determines anew the 
whole course of life, and puts him in new relation with 
God. 



'Next to the teaching of the unquestioned Pauline writ- 
ings, and in certain respects of greater weight in the esti- 
mation of some, is the contribution to the doctrine of 
atonement made by the Epistle to the Hebrews, long at- 
tributed to Paul. The majority of scholars now believe 
that this is certainly not Paul's composition, though he in 
large part furnished its ideas. The letter is avowedly the 
work, not of an apostle, or even an original disciple of 
Jesus, but of a convert who has received his knowledge of 
Jesus and his words from apostolic sources. (^) That 
would quite accurately describe Apollos, whom Luther first 
guessed to have been the actual writer. Whoever he was, 
he makes no claim to inspiration or apostolic authority. 

C) Heb. 1:3. 



i^OO FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

The so-called ^^epistle" is not a letter at all, but a homily, 
a religious essay or exhortation, belonging to the same 
class of early Christian writings as 2 Clement. 

The chief characteristic of the homily is the author's 
attempt to establish analogies between the Jewish system, 
the details of which he seems to have imperfectly under- 
stood, and the new religion of the Christ. No more than 
Paul did he comprehend the origin and nature of the 
Jewish sacrificial system. It was not his fault that the 
science of comparative religion did not then exist, and 
that he was ignorant of the correspondence between Juda- 
ism and Oriental paganism. But, waiving this funda- 
mental defect in the homily^ a careful examination of it 
shows that there has been widespread misinterpretation 
of it. 

The idea of sacrifice so prominent in this writing, is 
not expiation or propitiation, but purification or cleansing. 
This is made clear at the very outset, where it is said of 
the Son that, ^'when he had made a purification for sins, 
he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." 
This is the controlling thought of the homily. The argu- 
ment is twofold: 

First, that Jesus performs for his people essentially 
the same ofiice that the High Priest perfonned for the 
Jews, only much more effectually; and that he performed 
it once for all, so that it does not need to be repeated. 
That office was to put away sin, which was accomplished 
in symbol by the High Priest going on the day of Atone- 
ment into the Holy of Holies and sprinkling the mercy- 
seat with blood. Jesus, by the shedding of his blood, has 
once for all effected the purification, sanctification, cleans- 
ing, perfecting (all of these terms are employed in turn) 
of all that trust in him. Throughout the first eight chap- 
ters, Jesus is likened to the High Priest, not the victim; 
he is represented as making the sacrifice of purification, 
not as being the sacrifice. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 201 

Second^ in the ninth and tenth chapters, Jesus is also 
spoken of as the victim, as ^^being offered," but the end 
of the offering is still to purify his people from their sins. 
There is no doctrine of expiation or vicarious sacrifice 
anywhere in the ^^epistle."(^) 

Hebrews is therefore wholly in accord with the view 
that the real significance of the death of Jesus is that it 
completed and perfected that revelation of God's char- 
acter as the loving Father of all men, which it was the 
chief object of the entire life and teaching of Jesus to 
make to the world. It is most untrue to say that if the 
death of Christ was not expiatory, it was no more than 
the death of any martyr. His death was in any case as 
much greater than any martyr's, as his life and personal- 
ity were greater than any martyr's. The significance of 
any death is not the act of dying, for we all die, but in 
the character of him who dies. The most orthodox the- 
ologian is compelled to stress that, and to regard the ex- 
piatory value of Christ's death as resting on his Person, 
not on the mere fact of his death. If we deny expiatory 
value to the death of Christ, the sigTiificance of his Person 
remains, unaffected by any theory of atonement. 

Some sort of death was an inseparable part of the hu- 
man life of the Son of God. Without experiencing death, 
he could not have been a full man. Without death, the 
Captain of our salvation could not have been "made per- 
fect through suffering." The particular death of Jesus 
on the cross was the natural effect and culmination of his 
prophetic labors, Judaea being what it was in his day. 
He could not be faithful to his mission and fail so to die. 
^sTot his death of the cross per se, therefore, but his death 
in obedience to his Father's will, and in the accomplish- 
ment of his mission of revealing God to men and so recon- 
cilino* men to God, is the significant thing. Jesus died 
for the world in the same sense that he lived and taught 

(M Heb. 9:13, 14, 22, 26; 10:10, 14. 



202 FUJS^DAMENTALS OF CHEISTIAIS^ITY 

for the world. His whole life was a sacrifice, an offering 
to his Father of a lowly and obedient heart, not his death 
merely. 

It has already been asserted that no doctrine of atone- 
ment can be deduced from the words of Jesus, without 
doing inexcusable violence to them. It should be added 
that this does not necessarily involve the inference that 
no doctrine of atonement is possible or true. The thesis 
cannot possibly be maintained that Jesus taught all truth, 
and that nothing is to be accepted as true in the sphere 
of religion, if it cannot be found in his words. The thesis 
that can be maintained is, that Jesus taught all that is 
fundamental in religious truth, and therefore no doctrine 
can be accepted as true that is irreconcilable with his 
teaching. His promise of the Spirit of Truth, to lead his 
disciples into all the truth, warrants us in hoping and be- 
lieving that continual progress in apprehension of truth 
is possible to us. But no later development of Christian 
ideas can set aside positive teaching of Jesus. Whatever 
contradicts Jesus is not a further increment of truth, but 
an increment of error. 

Consequently, whatever ideas of atonement we hold, 
they must, to be worthy of even provisional acceptance as 
truth, be in full accord with the teaching of Jesus: that 
God freely forgives men their sins on condition of re- 
pentance solely; that he forgives men their sins, because 
he loves us as a Father. And furthermore, the main fea- 
ture of a doctrine of atonement should be its capacity and 
tendency to promote that repentance, or change of attitude 
toward God and man, which alone procures the divine for- 
giveness. (^) 

(') ''The first question to ask concerning any dogma of the 
Church is not whether it conforms, or does not conform, to orthodox 
standards, but whether it serves to reveal or obscure the Figure 
of the Living Christ. For thousands of willing souls Christ lies 
Imried in a grave of theological subtleties. It is for us to roll 
awav the stones, not vo dispute about the inscriptions upon them.'' 
E. Herman, ''Christianity in the New Age," p. 180. N. Y., 1919. 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGL\X 203 

VI 

Jesus taught^ then, that the way of deliverance is by 
repentance, change of attitude toward God. God forgives 
the sinner because he is God, our Father. Jesus nowhere 
claims that he procures from God forgiveness of sins for 
man ; he makes kno^Ti to man God's love and consequent 
willingness to forgive sins. Paul taught that deliverance 
is by w^ay of propitiation and expiation: God forgives 
because his Son has made a sacrifice for man, and by trust 
in that sacrifice the sinner is ^^justified.'' Are these two 
forms of teaching so mutually incompatible that if we 
choose one we must reject the other? 

Not if we understand neither as giving us, or attempting 
to give us, a scientific definition of God's forgiveness of 
sins. Xot if we understand both Jesus and Paul to be 
illustrating the character of God and his forgiveness 
through human relations. K'ot if we concede that all 
illustrations are not the truth, but the clothes of truth. 
Illustrations can give us only glimpses of underlying real- 
ity, helpful but not exhaustive. I^one separately, nor all 
together, can tell us the whole truth about God and his 
relation to men. Viewed as scientific definitions, the 
teaching of Jesus and Paul cannot be reconciled; viewed 
as illustrations, each may be regarded as exhibiting part 
of the truth. 

^Nevertheless, it seems to be open to us to say that one 
illustration discloses more of God's nature than another, 
that one conveys a better idea of the essential truth than 
another, that one conforms better than another to the 
ethics of to-day, that one is dra^\m from dead institutions 
while another is in accord with living experiences. So 
that the antithesis between Jesus and Paul is not neces- 
sarily that between absolute truth and absolute error, but 
that between higher truth and lower, between better meth- 
ods of setting forth the character of God and his dealings 
with us and inferior methods. Will religion lose any- 



204 FUXDAME^'TALS OF CHEISTIAXITY 

thing, will even theology be seriously damaged, by admis- 
sion that Jesus understood God better than Paul ? Shall 
we fear to say that the relation of Fatherhood helps our 
age to understand God better than the relation of Judge ? 

Truth — meaning our apprehension of truth — is relative 
not absolute, dynamic not static, progressive not final. 
Paul's teachings about justification and atonement were 
finer and higher ideas of God and his relations to men 
than had been previously known to those who first read 
his letters. They continued to be helpful ideas for many 
generations. We are fortunate enough now to have at- 
tained still better ideas, chiefiy through fuller comprehen- 
sion of what Jesus taught. Must Paul, once an inspira- 
tion to Christian thought, henceforth be an incubus, be- 
cause we insist on valuing the form of his teaching more 
highly than the substance ? 

The essential content of Paul's doctrine of atonement, 
apart from the form in which it is conveyed, is capable 
of restatement in terms of individual ethical responsibility, 
to which the world has now advanced- The difficulty is 
more than half eliminated the moment we assent to the 
proposition that Paul does not give us rigid and precise 
scientific formulae, that he is not a systematic theologian 
in the sense that Augustine and Thomas Aquinas were 
such. We shall then attach no more than their proper 
meaning to words like ^^propitiation," ^^redemption," ^^jus- 
tification'' and the like. Regarding such terms as fluid, 
not rigid, without doing them violence we can reach an 
interpretation that will accord with modern ethical ideas. 
For example, when the apostle says that the death of Jesus 
was to establish the righteousness of God (not bis justice, 
as Paul's interpreters say), did he necessarily mean any- 
thing more than this: that the death of Jesus was the su- 
preme act of obedience in a life wholly ruled by the will 
of his Father ? 

So interpreted, the sacrificial or expiatory element in 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAN 205 

PauFs atonement teaching is not fundamental, but the 
vicarious. And this Jesus teaches as clearly as Paul. He 
could not do less and be a teacher of truth. The father 
of the Prodigal suffered with and for his wayward son. 
In all human forgiveness there is an element of self- 
sacrificCj which justifies the numerous sayings to the effect 
that Jesus bore the sins of men and gave himself in their 
behalf. The error has been in pouring the emotional and 
highly figurative language of prophets and poets into the 
mould of hardj precise theologic definition. 

Vicarious suffering cannot be questioned. It runs all 
through life. Everywhere the innocent suffers for the 
guilty, not as his substitute, but as his partner. This is 
the price that men pay for the great blessings of family 
and social relations. A man can no more escape suffering 
from the sins of others than he can prevent their suffering 
for his sins. This is the meaning of brotherhood, the 
indelible truth of the old clan ethics: we are one race, 
and the sins of each are the sins of all. By sharing our 
humanity, the Son of God obligated himself to bear our 
griefs and sorrows. The solidarity of the race compels 
such suffering, and Jesus could not have escaped if he 
would. By so much as his office as Messiah and Deliverer 
set him above other men, by so much was his burden of 
the sins and sorrows of mankind increased. 

It follows, therefore, that Jesus bore the sins of the 
world in a sense unique and to a degree unexampled. 
Partaker of our nature, he was not actual partaker of our 
sins, yet he bore them. He bore our sins as a hater of 
sin and a lover of men — sin offended his moral purity, it 
debased those dear to him. He bore our sin as one who 
tries to put it away, to destroy it. He did this as our 
fellowman; he did it as the Man in whom God dwelt 
most richly of all men, so that he became an expression of 
God and what God did he did through him. This was 
^^the joy set before him" that enabled him to endure the 



206 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

cross, despising shame: the noble gladness of knowing 
that his endurance of sin was the deliverance of others. 
His suffering was truly redemptive, because in all the ages 
it has led men to forsake evil and seek the noble life and 
the true. The voluntary suffering of love that we see in 
him makes all other suffering for sin appear poor and 
small. 

How can the innocent suffer the penalty of others' guilt ? 
Because of his purity of soul Jesus must have lived under 
the most pow^erful consciousness of the nature of moral 
wrong and its effects on life and character. In that was 
a far more acute suffering than the mere consciousness of 
personal ill desert could have caused. He bore our sins, 
therefore, because he lived under the crushing w^eight of 
the world's sinfulness, took upon his soul the burden of 
all human souls. His life and death were a solemn tes- 
timony, out of the depths of this bitter experience, to the 
hatefulness of everything evil; and equally solemn testi- 
mony to the excellence of all the good. It was a vindica- 
tion of the divine character, of the divine standards of 
conduct. And that he, in whom God visibly dwelt, should 
undergo this experience, was the highest possible testimony 
to God's love for a lost world. 

^^God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself." 
In these words Paul has given us his highest conception of 
atonement. Other attempts to explain are on a distinctly 
low^r ethical plane. Indeed we should do well to banish 
the word ^'atonement" from religious literature altogether, 
and use instead the word ^^reconciliation," which is both 
more Scriptural and more rational. It may be granted 
that there is no single, uniform explanation of the work 
of Christ in the 'New Testament, or even in the writings 
of Paul. There has already been too much ^^systematiz- 
ing," that has been the root of many evils. Still, "recon- 
ciliation" is the best w^ord, if not the exclusive word, to 
describe our loftiest ideal of Christ's work. Eeconcilia- 



PAUL THE SPECULATIVE THEOLOGIAIS^ 207 

tion is the bringing of God and men into moral unity and 
mutual fellowship. It is not a doctrine, but a fact of 
history and experience, that Jesus in his death has been 
the supreme means of reconciling men to God. All schools 
of theology will grant that. What they differ about is 
the process by which reconciliation has been accomplished. 
It is matter of comparative indifference how reconciliation 
is accounted for, provided we hold fast to the fundamental 
thing: this is not primarily a question of law and govern- 
ment, but of relation between persons. 

One other word that Paul uses has been seriously mis- 
interpreted, ^^propitiation." This has almost uniformly 
been seized upon and employed by theologians to support 
their ideas of sacrifice and substitution, w^hich we have 
seen to be ethically untenable. In this they have done 
injustice to PauL True, in the spoken Greek of apostolic 
times, it was not uncommon to describe propitiatory gifts 
to the gods as iA.aoTr||Qia (^) and Paul may have been 
acquainted with this usage of the word. But he was cer- 
tainly much better acquainted with its use in the Sep- 
tuagint, where it invariably (^) denotes the happoreth^ or 
cover of the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies of 
the Tabernacle. Here, between the wings of the cherubim, 
was the sheJfmah, the radiance or glory of Jehovah, visible 
symbol of his presence with his people and his willingTiess 
to forgive sins» Since the time of Tyndale, the term 
"mercy-seat'' has been found in all English versions as the 
equivalent of Uacytrigiov. Paul(^) and the letter to 
the Hebrews(^) use this word metaphorically of Jesus. 
It is inconceivable that they should have had in mind the 
heathen sense of it, rather than the thought it would in- 
stantly suggest to every Jew. No, they intended to say 
of Jesus that he is our "mercy-seat," the meeting-place of 

(^) Deissmann, Biblical Studies, p. 131. 

{') Kx. 25:17, 22; 26:34; 40:20; Lev. 16:2, 13; Num. 7:89. 

(^ Kom. 3:25. 

(M Heb. 9:5; 2:17. 



208 FUI^DAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

God and maiij the visible symbol of God's presence with 
his people and the surety of the divine forgiveness. (^) In 
this sense, the only interpretation that accords with proba- 
bility, the word is fully in accord with the ideal of recon- 
ciliation, and certainly suggests nothing of sacrifice or 
expiation or substitution. (^) 

(^) The kindred word Uaor|Li6c;? found in 1 John 2:2, 4:10, wiU 
bear the same interpretation without violence. 

(/') For a full conspectus of the Scripture passages relating to 
atonement, see Appendix. 



CHAPTER X 
WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 



What is Christianity? Is it chiefly a life or chiefly 
an institution ? Is Christianity the Church, historic, 
present or possible? 

According to Jesus, Christianity is the Kingdom of 
God. He cherished a social ideal, a vision of a recon- 
structed world, a new human society, composed of regen- 
erated men, a society of which good will to others, mutual 
service and helpfulness, was to be the law. To be a mem- 
ber of the Kingdom was to undertake the Great Adventure 
of the spirit, which may involve much privation and pain, 
but leads to the heights of achievement and blessedness. 
The teaching of Jesus affords no hint of purpose to estab- 
lish an organization, though he must have known (since 
any man of good sense would know it) that something of 
the sort would almost certainly grow out of his teaching. 
Indeed, he must have been sensible that without organized 
j)ropaganda his words would be evanescent, and his influ- 
ence as a teacher would prove no more than a ripple on 
the world's life. Yet he seemed utterly careless about 
organization ; his to supply the spirit, others might provide 
the body, of his new society. 

Paul occasionally mentions the Kingdom, but only oc- 
casionally and only mentions. He does not use the word 
in the gospel sense, but rather as something pertaining to 
the future life. Even in the fourth Gospel the ideal of 
Jesus has visibly faded from the consciousness of his 

209 



210 rUK^DAMEXTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

disciple. PaiiFs idea of the ^'gospel/' as we have seen, 
is not the immediate coming of the Kingdom, but a Mes- 
sage of forgiveness of sins through the death of the Christ, 
in consequence of which one is admitted to the heavenly 
Kingdom. And in Panl's mind organization is a most 
imj)ortant thing. He spent his life in founding and ex- 
tending the ecclesia, local organizations of believers in 
Jesus after the model of the Jewish synagogue, the chief 
function of which was to make known everywhere the 
]\Iessage he had delivered to them. So great importance 
did these groups assume in his eyes, that he declared that 
Christ died for the ecclesia, that the ecclesia was the body 
of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit. 

The rapid transformation of the ^'faith" of Jesus into 
the Faith, from a spirit and life into a creed, a cult and 
M Church, is one of the most interesting and fruitful of 
all historical studies : but this is not the place for even a 
brief outline of it. What w^e are just now interested to 
note is, that during the first stages of the transformation 
the continued influence of Jesus is indicated by the earli- 
est and most persistent name for his religion, ^^the Way." 
By this name, the Church testified in word, even while 
denying it in deed, that the chief legacy of Jesus to the 
world w^as an ideal of life. And, how^ever much overlaid 
by tradition and ritual, this truth has never been quite 
lost. ^^Throughout the whole history of the Church," says 
Weizsiicker very justly, ^'the imitation of eTesus, and the 
contemplation of the whole personality of that sincere and 
living human soul, has represented a distinct stream, a 
distinct form of Christianity, of peculiar simplicity and 
force, which holds the balance against the Pauline 
form."(^) 

The colossal hypocrisy of embattled nations praying to 
the same God for power to kill each other has dealt the 
finishing blow to men's faith in the historic Christianity, 

(M "The Apostolic Age," 1:173. 



WHAT THEX IS CHRISTIAXITY ? 211 

the religion embodied in institutions. If Christianity can- 
not be reinterpreted, if it cannot be reembodied, if it 
cannot be made to mean something it has never meant 
since apostolic times, it is doomed. The Chnrch to-day 
is not an agent for establishing the Kingdom, but a com- 
petitor of the Kingdom. The first task of the Church — 
of any chnrch — is to increase its 0T\m numbers, property, 
income and influence in its community. The success of 
any minister, of whatever badge or title, is measured by 
his efiiciency in accomplishing this specific task. His one 
duty is ^^to build up the Church," and woe to him if he 
fails. He is the slave of institutionalism. 

The new Christianity that we must have, if we are to 
have any, is simply a renewal of the Christianity of Jesus, 
so long overlaid by tradition as to be lost sight of, so long 
denied by the ofiicial teachers of religion as to become for- 
gott^en. In its zeal for things, historic Christianity has 
ignored men. And so far as it has concerned itself with 
men, it has held up to them a w^ong ideal. Its concep- 
tion of Christian character has long been mainly a series 
of negatives — a notion that was put into a quaint phrase 
by a late popular ^^evangelist," who described being a 
Christian as equivalent to ^^quit your meanness,'^ give up 
your vicious practices and stop neglecting your business. 

And so it has come to pass that the Church is giving 
to the world a distorted, inadequate, and therefore false, 
interpretation of Christianity. It is laying emphasis on 
the unessential things, the negative virtues, and slurring 
over the essential and positive, until the world no longer 
connects the essentials specifically with Christianity. Men 
who are learning to esteem unselfishness, generosity, help- 
fulness, as the great and fine things of life, do not com- 
monly think of these as Christian virtues. In their view 
a Christian is a man who does not gamble or drink or 
swear or smoke or run after women, and especially one 



212 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

who carefully shuns the company of men who do these 
things, and cultivates a spirit of self -righteousness in con- 
sequence. That to be a Christian is something much finer 
and manlier than abstinence from personal vices (^^these 
ought ye to have done and not to leave the other undone''), 
the man of the world has no idea whatever, and the ^^Chris- 
tian'' himself has little. 

But the Church has often shown a marvellous power of 
recuperation. There have been times many before ours, 
when it seemed in the last agonies of dissolution, and it 
has nevertheless awakened to new life, much to the dis- 
comfiture of its foes and to the great delight of its friends. 
It may be that such an awakening of historic Christianity, 
such a refashioning of its institutions, is at hand. But 
nothing short of entire revolution in its ideals and meth- 
ods, fall recovery of the spirit of Jesus, will suffice. The 
Church must cease to be merely ameliorative and become 
regenerative. Undoubtedly there is a vast amount of hu- 
man misery that, since it cannot be immediately cured, 
should be relieved; but this should be a mere by-product 
of Christianity, not its chief aim. If Jesus can do no 
more than 

make a dying bed 
Feel soft as downy pillows are, 

he is out of date. It is help in life, not death, for which 
the hard beset man of to-day is looking and longing; and 
no religion that does not offer this has the slightest chance 
of acceptance with him. It is because Jesus is still in 
the world, as an energizing, creative Spirit, and because 
he can give help to struggling, despairing men, as no one 
else ever has given or can give, that there is still hope for 
Christianity. Let us who know of this power tell the 
world about it, and a new Christianity will be born out of 
men's new experience. 



WHAT THEI^ IS CHRISTIANITY? 213 

II 

What is Christianity ? Is it a form of worship, or a 
form of sound words, or a form of polity, or a form of 
ministering the sacraments ? If it is none of these things, 
but the negation of forms, a thing of the spirit and not 
of the letter, where shall we look for Christianity to-day? 
Is it not true that those who ^ ^profess and call themselves 
Christians'' are concerning themselves mainly with forms ? 
It will do the reader good to answer these questions for 
himself, and he will be wise to think awhile before he 
speaks. The world is answering them now, and if men 
must choose between the dryness and anarchism that goes 
by the name of Protestantism and the paralyzing spiritual 
despotism called Catholicism, they will assuredly choose — 
neither ! 

That religion is an affair of the spirit is quite emphati- 
cally and unanimously affirmed by Christian teachers, how- 
ever their practice may contradict their words. Thus 
they bear testimony to the truth that the power of Chris- 
tianity lies in its capacity of development and recupera- 
tion — a power shown no less strikingly in its institutions 
than in individual lives. In other words, Christianity is 
and always has been what it was first proclaimed to be, a 
way of life, the power of God unto salvation. But de- 
liverance of a soul is not a mechanical thing ; it is a spir- 
itual process that cannot be accomplished by sacrifices or 
sacraments. It is quite in accord with human indolence 
that -men should look for a salvation to be accomplished in 
something done for them. It is very sweet — for some — 
to sing: 

Nothing either great or small 
Eemains for me to do; 

Jesus died and paid it all, 
All the debt I owe. 

But what if the theology of this is as poor as the poetry ? 
What if there never was any ^^debt'' and Jesus has there- 



214 EUJSTDAMEIS^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

fore ^^paid'^ nothing? What if everything remains for 
us to do? ''^But salvation is the gift of God; the Scrip- 
tures say so ; and we have but to stretch out hands of faith 
and receive.'' The premise is correct; the Scriptures ^^say 
so'' ; yet the conclusion^ while it appears to be logical, is 
really a non sequitur. Salvation is as much a gift of God 
as daily bread, but on the same condition : man must work 
for it. The ideal of Jesus is a salvation accomplished by 
men, not for them, from within, not from without. Jesus 
does not deny God's grace; he tells us how God's grace 
acts. God inspires the desire for deliverance, God sup- 
plies the power, but the work must be done by the saved 
man in his own soul, or he is never saved. Any other 
deliverance of a free moral agent is inconceivable. Man 
must be the captain of his own soul; God has so made 
him ; his final orders must come from himself. 

In all our theology, our philosophizing about religion, 
we must keep close to the facts of experience to ensure 
validity to our results. Only the assured facts of the 
Christian life can impart this element of reality to our 
thinking. ^^The deepest and most precious faith," says a 
recent writer, ^^the faith none can afford to lose, is the 
faith that to discover the truth about reality and to follow 
this truth loyally, will in the end lead to the highest good. 
To live by error or illusion is costly." (^) Our deepest 
conviction should be that it is best for us to know the 
truth and adjust to it our thinking, our conduct and our 
hope. And so, as religious experience has developed, as 
it has advanced, as it has become richer, more complex, 
as through it we are ever more approximating the ulti- 
mate spiritual reality, theology has been continually 
changing. This is a necessity of the case, nothing less 
than a spiritual law. The greatest error of historic Chris- 
tianity, an error so grave in results as to be both tragic 
and pathetic, has been its agelong effort to substitute for 

tTw. G. Everett, "Moral Values," p. 420. N. Y. 1918. 



WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 215 

the ever ripening expression of the inner life of Chris- 
tians of all ages the Christian experience of a single age, 
as an unchanging, authoritative, infallible norm of the 
Christian life for all time to come. Instead of something 
dynamic, the attempt has been to make theology static. 
The bane of religion is the dogmatist's search for author- 
ity, and his insistence that he has found authority whore 
none exists. For, in the usual sense of the word, there 
is no authority in religion, nothing fixed, unalterable, in- 
fallible; because religion is life, and life is growth, and 
growth is change. 

Therefore theology ought to be no bed of Procrustes, on 
which we place this 'New Testament document and that 
religious experience, chopping off a bit here, stretching 
out a bit there, until everything fits exactly into our pre- 
ordained ^'system." That too nearly describes the method 
of all theology of the past, but such will not be the method 
of the future. A too ingenious exegesis, warranted to 
make all parts of the Bible agree to a hair's breadth, is 
impossible to reconcile with the profession that these 
words are Holy Writ, and therefore demand from us espe- 
cially honest handling. A scientific exegesis will not press 
the word of one writer into artificial agreement with an- 
other, nor evacuate one part of all real meaning to ^^har- 
monize" it with something else, nor read into the text 
ideas that could never have entered the minds of the 
writers, in the vain hope of making all say the same things. 

After all, the question comes to this : Is there any sound 
foundation for religion in the facts of life, interpreted 
according to our progressive knowledge of man and the 
world ? Or is religion, as many to-day are telling us, 
nothing more than a synthesis of the dreams of enthusiasts 
and the babble of theologians ? The sound conclusion 
seems to be that religion has to do with verifiable facts of 
experience; and that its mysteries, some of which may 
prove insoluble, are yet no greater than the mysteries that 



216 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

confront science. A difference of terminology has long 
hidden this even from men ordinarily keen-sighted : where 
religion says ^^faith'' science says ^^hypothesis." Both in- 
volve the same mental process and the same spiritual at- 
titude. The hypotheses of science are the response to the 
mind's demand for intellectual unity and completeness. 
They outrun full demonstration. That is scientific faith, 
and religious faith differs no whit. God is a hypothesis 
equally with gravitation, and one hypothesis is no more 
matter of faith than the other. Gravitation is a hypo- 
thesis that attempts to unify our knowledge of the heavenly 
bodies and explain their movements. All that we really 
know is that stars and planets behave as if they were mu- 
tually attracted in a certain way. Likewise the entire 
cosmos behaves as if there were a Being who includes and 
unifies all the phenomena of nature, all the elements of 
experience, into one organic life process, controlled by 
intelligence, will and goodness. 

The problem of theology is not a question of knowing 
everything, or of fully comprehending anything; it is a 
question of unifying our knowledge and clarifying our 
ideas and refusing to pretend to believe contradictories. 
The essence of obscurantism is blind clinging to discred- 
ited facts and theories of religion, and it is the "theology" 
guilty of this unpardonable sin that is here held up to 
reprobation. A Christian theology will be a necessity so 
long as there is a Christian life; for religion must not 
consist of mere vague emotions and aspirations, but must 
be founded in a definite philosophy of life, corresponding 
to our scientific knowledge as W€ll as to our inner experi- 
ence, or it cannot successfully appeal to a world that more 
and more demands reality as a basis for its living. If 
such a theology as this is impossible, then religion is 
doomed to become the sole property of the "neurotic, the 
erotic and the tommyrotic." 



WHAT THEISr IS CHKISTIANITY ? 2l7 

III 

What is Christianity? Who shall tell us, Paul or 
Jesus ? Which teaches the truth that Christians should 
accept as fundamental and authoritative? And, if the 
answer to this is, ^^Both/^ then comes the further question, 
Are their teachings mutually in agreement, or are there 
elements in each that are mutually contradictory and ex- 
clusive? Is there a rational way of holding both teach- 
ings, as to substance at least? Have their words been 
misunderstood, distorted into semblance of contradiction 
that does not actually exist ? 

As to the teachings of Jesus, distortion is certain. The 
fact concerning his work that most moves our wonder and 
pity is that nobody understood him. Th^ great tragedy 
of Jesus was not his death but his life. ISTo human being 
has been so solitary. There were those who loved him, a 
few, but among them all he had not one real friend, not 
one to whom he could bare his inmost soul and be sure of 
sympathetic hearing. Weep over the dying Jesus, ye who 
will, while those who have eyes to see mourn the living 
Jesus, the man who had none to whom he could unlock 
his heart. Loneliness is "the penalty of greatness, and 
none was ever so lonely as he, because among all the sons 
of men he was greatest. 

Yet, in spite of mental impenetrability, a certain meas- 
ure of the truth did percolate through the souls of those 
in the inner circle of disciples and became the possession 
of all his followers. The memory of his hearers, fortu- 
nately for us, was better than their insight, and they pre- 
served with remarkable fidelity teachings that they neither 
believed nor comprehended. Do we lay ourselves open to 
a charge of complacent conceitedness by this assumption 
that our generation understands Jesus better than his 
own? Some may think so; some will certainly not lose 
the opportunity to say so. But others will reason thus: 
If nineteen centuries of divine Providence and Christian 



218 ru:s^DAME:s^TALS or Christianity 

experience have thrown no additional light on the signifi- 
cance of the Man and the Teaching, what are Providence 
and Christian experience good for? One is content to 
leave his critics to wrestle with that problem. 

And if the teaching of Jesns has been misunderstood and 
distorted, so has that of Paul. There is an element of phil- 
osophizing about the facts of religion in his letters that is 
totally absent from the words of Jesus, but that of itself 
constitutes no real difficulty. Paul could not help being 
shaped by the school of Gamaliel, nor could he avoid the 
powerful influence of the prevailing Greco-Roman civiliza- 
tion of Tarsus. These things imply differences between 
him and Jesus, but not contradictions. It is to later 
thinkers, taking shelter behind his name, that we are to 
look for the contradictions. Historic Paulinism is as little 
the creation of the apostle, as historic Christianity is the 
creation of Jesus. Both are sheer perversions of their 
original. The highly speculative element in Paulinism 
was mainly the contribution of Greek philosophy through 
the influence of the Fathers of Alexandria, of w^hom 
Clement and Origen were most eminent. They, and not 
Paul, are the real authors of Christian theology. Both 
wxre Platonists. They made much use of Paul's writings, 
but vastly transformed his ideas w^hile most professing 
to follow the great apostle. 

Under this Greek influence, Christianity w^as made a 
philosophy for the cultivated, wdiile at the same time, un- 
der the spell of certain Asiatic cults, it was made a mystery 
for the igTiorant. The two tendencies combined in Ca- 
tholicism, and Augustine put the capstone on the edifice. 
His interpretation of Paul has passed current for the 
original teaching of the apostle to our o^vn day. If Augus- 
tine failed in any detail to complete the transformation of 
Paul, Calvin supplied the defect. 

Xo student of the early centuries, however, can avoid 
tlie conclusion that, if Christianity means chiefly a scheme 



WHAT THEN IS CHIilSTIANITY ? 219 

of doctrine, Paul is its real source. That is to say, his 
writings furnish the primary materials out of which later 
theologians formulated that chain of doctrines that for 
centuries has been called the ^^gospel." Such, for example, 
as that ^^in Adam's fall we sinned all" ; that the Son of 
God, who lived in the divine likeness and glory, but took 
upon himself human form, died as a propitiation for the 
sins of men; that faith in him justifies the sinner without 
works of law ; that only those specially chosen by God be- 
lieve and are saved ; that Christ will come again to judge 
the world, and the bodies of men will be raised from their 
graves, and the saints will reign with Christ forever. This 
is historic Paulinism, and it is historically true that the 
religion of Jesus did not assimilate Paulinism, but suc- 
cumbed to it. 

The undeniable difference between Paul and Jesus was 
made an absolute antithesis by the early Church, and has 
remained an antithesis to this day. Wherever Jesus and 
Paul agree, the followers of Paul are comparatively silent. 
Wherever Jesus and Paul seem to differ, they not only 
follow Paul but exaggerate the difference. In every case 
where it is at all feasible, they substitute Paul for Jesus. 
IsTow if this antithesis is to be maintained, if we must 
choose between the Jesus of the Gospels and the Paul of' 
the theologians, we must choose Jesus. Else, let us cease 
to call ourselves Christians and rename ourselves Pauli- 
cians, as certain heretical sects once frankly did. And 
surely of all possible heresies the least pardonable is to 
profess to follow Jesus and really to follow Paul. 

But if Paul may be reasonably interpreted once more, 
as he has not been since the days of Augustine, we may 
keep both him and Jesus as the chief teachers of our faith. 
What the Christian world can no longer afford to do, is to 
let the theologians' Paul thrust Jesus into the background. 
It can no longer afford to permit the social gospel that 
was the essence of the original Christianity to be over- 



220 je-tJNDAMENTALS OF CHElSTIAKITlT 

sloughed by a theology called Pauline, but really an un- 
Pauline Greek philosophy long since discarded by phil- 
osophers, but still held fast by theologians. The freedom 
that Paul once asserted from the law of works, we must 
now claim from the law of dogma. Such freedom is our 
birthright. 

IV 

What is Christianity? Is there place in it for Paul- 
inism ? 

We have reached the conclusion that the divergence be- 
tween Paul and Jesus would cease to appear serious, in 
any theologic sense, if a reasonable interpretation of the 
writings of Paul were substituted for the unreasonable 
perversion of them that has so long obtained. For it is 
essentially unreasonable not to distinguish things that 
plainly differ, to identify things that should be kept care- 
fully separate in our thinking. The solution of our prob- 
lem has already been foreshadowed. Most of our diffi- 
culties in relation to the apostle's teachings disappear when 
we adopt as the principle of interpretation the simple 
hypothesis that Paul is not stating ^^etemal truths,'^ not 
formulating dogmas for all time, but illustrating perma- 
nent religious and ethical principles in terms of thought 
comprehensible by his own age. 

It would be a reasonable corollary from this principle 
that analogies suggested by institutions then existing would 
be illuminating to Paul's contemporaries, but that now, 
when those institutions have ceased to exist, the ideas con- 
nected with them have also ceased to have force and sig- 
nificance. It is the identification of the passing show of 
his own age with the permanent in religion, that has made 
the great apostle the apparent leader of the blind into the 
ditch of unbelief. Once let us get it clearly in mind that 
the illustration is not to be identified with the truth illus- 
trated, that the analogy is temporary but the principle 



WHAT THEN IS CHEISTIANITY ? 221 

permanent^ and real antagonism between Jesus and Paul 
no longer exists. Differences remain, but not contradic- 
tions. 

An instance of what is meant lies on the very surface 
of the Epistles. Paul's letters are full of assertions that 
believers are the ^^slaves" of Christ, and of illustrations 
founded on slavery. (^) It was perfectly natural that he 
should choose slavery as an analogy of the new and inti- 
mate relation that exists between the believer and Christ, 
that the sense of obligation, strict and indissoluble, to him 
who had shown himself to be the Great Deliverer should 
so express itself. Slavery was a universal institution in 
the first century, as familiar in all its details as the family 
relation, and lending itself as easily to illustration of re- 
ligious truth. But while the family still endures, slavery 
has gone. What was natural to Paul is unnatural to us. 

We can no longer think in terms of slavery. The insti- 
tution has so far passed away from our knowledge and 
experience that it has no more reality for us than the rela- 
tions of feudalism. If Paul had lived in the Middle Ages 
he would undoubtedly have likened the believer's relation 
to Christ to that of vassal and overlord, and the illustra- 
tion would then have been significant and helpful. But 
analogies drawn from slavery or feudalism or any past 
state of society are a hindrance rather than a help to men 
of our age. Before they are valid, they must be trans- 
lated into terms of our own experience. Untranslated 
they do not give us any assistance in understanding our 
relation to Jesus, but function as a barrier between us 
and him. For he is not in reality an owner and we his 
chattel slaves, nor is he an overlord and we his vassals. 

(^) Three of his letters he begins by calling himself a slave of 
Christ (Romans, Philippians, Titus). He describes himself and 
Timothy to the Corinthians as "yonr slaves for Jesns' sake"; he 
ealls the former state of unbelief ''slaves of sin," and the new status 
of the believer as "slaves of rionhteousness," "Christ's slave," "slaves 
of the Lord'' and the like. GaL 1 :10; 1 Cor. 7:22; Eph. 6;5; 2 Tim, 
2:24; Col. 4:12. 



222 fu2s"dame:xtals of cheistiaxity - 

It is not because we wish to deny the reality of the bond 
between us and him that no Christian of to-day can think 
of himself as slave or vassal to Jesus. We do not desire 
to make the bond less strait and enduring, but these 
analogies are impossible to us. ^^Slave" and ^S^assal" no 
longer illustrate truth ; they only obscure truth. 

What are called the ^*great doctrines" of Paul are of 
the same character precisely: illustrations of religious 
truth from contemporary thought, analogies from contem- 
porary institutions. Paul and Calvin had one experience 
in common, a fundamental experience that conditioned all 
their thinking. Both had been brought up under the 
shadow of Roman imperialism; both had been indoctrin- 
ated with the principles of Roman law. The spirit of 
Roman institutions had made an ineradicable impression 
on their minds. They were one in conceiving the char- 
acter and acts of God in the light of the greatest institu- 
tion and the greatest personage known to their respective 
times, the Roman Empire and its Emperor. The sov- 
ereignty of God, his omnipotent power, his absolute rights 
over the world and the race he had created, seemed to 
them elemental truth about God, and so each made this 
the fundamental postulate of his theology. 

Because of their familiarity with monarchs and trap- 
pings of royalty the Scripture writers generally, and Paul 
especially, put many of their truths in forms that are for 
us quite obsolete and meaningless. Or, so far as they 
have meaning for us, it is a wrong meaning, so wrong as 
often to be repulsive. The popular caricature of the Scrip- 
tural teachings about God, though a caricature, retains 
many of the features of the original: An absentee God, 
an Almighty King on a distant throne, with a court of 
angels ever about him singing his praises, flattered by the 
homage of men and constantly interfering with the affairs 
of the universe in response to the selfish pleas of syco- 
phantic worshipers — this is the popular ^^God." These 



WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 223 

unwortliy ideas defile a large part of our hymnology, and 
still supply the greater part of the phraseology of our 
prayers, yet no respectable Christian thinker to-day con- 
ceives God after this fashion. 

On the contrary, we conceive God in a fashion very dif- 
ferent. We look on Kaiser and imperialism, not with 
admiration^ but with abhorrence; if God were such as he, 
we would as soon worship the devil. Emperors are an 
anachronism. Despotism, on earth or in the heavens, is 
unthinkable. To us God is not monarch, but Father, and 
the greatest thing in his personality is not sovereignty but 
love. He is not seated on a distant throne, but is the 
ever-present Power in whom we live and move. It is no 
lon2:er true for us that 



^fe^ 



God^s in his heaven, 

AlFs right with the world. 

If God were in his heaven, all would be most wrong with 
the world. All's right with the world, because God is 
not in some far-away heaven, but is here in the world he 
has made, in the struggle of his creatures, fighting with 
them to win greater victories over evil, toiling by their 
side to bring in a larger good than men have yet known. 
An autocratic God, despotically ruling the universe from 
the outside, sufficed the age of Calvin, as it did that of 
Paul: but we must have a democratic God, an immanent 
God, a God who dwells with us and in us, a God who is 
still in the throes of creation, a God who calls us to be 
his comrades and helpers in the enterprise of making a 
new earth wherein righteousness dwells. 

According to the author of Genesis, God created man 
in his own image, but that statement suggests a much 
larger content to our minds that it did to his. We can 
no longer think, as that Hebrew writer did, of a God who 
made a world in six days and ^^finished the work that he 
had made," and because he had finished his work '^rested 



\ 



224 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

on the seventh day from all his work which he had made," 
and inferentially has been resting ever since. To us the 
creation of the world does not seem a work begun some 
five thousand years ago and finished out of hand in six 
days, but a process begun uncounted ages ago and still 
going on. Not instantaneous creation, but continuous cre- 
ation, is our idea of divine activity. God is not an idler 
in the heavens but is still a Maker. ^^My Father has been 
working hitherto and I am working/' said Jesus. 

Creating man in God's image is God's greatest work, as 
the writer of Genesis said, but it is a work by no means 
finished. We may well look for the coming, not of 
Nietzsche's Superman, a Gulliver amidst Lilliputians, but 
for a race of Supermen, as far greater than men now liv- 
ing as are the highest races of to-day greater than their 
savage ancestors — as far greater, perhaps, as those savages 
were greater than the brutes from which they sprang. Our 
confidence in the indefinite perfectibility of man rests on 
our belief in the continuous creative activity of God. He 
has something to make of man better and higher than we 
now know, or perhaps can now conceive. The ^^new cre- 
ation" in Christ Jesus of which Paul speaks (^) is now in 
process of creation, and in a deeper sense than that in- 
tended by the apostle John we may say, ^^Now are we 
children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we 
shall be."(^) 

A larger idea of salvation follows necessarily from this 
larger conception of God and his works. The epic of re- 
demption is not the story of a single soul, striving against 
giants and angels and demons for a few years to attain a 
solitary holiness, but the struggle of a race through count- 
less generations to realize an ideal of social righteousness, 
justice and love. So far as Paulinism can help in this 
struggle, it will be a welcome ally. By far the greater 

n~2 Cor. 5:17; Gal, 6:15. 
{') 1 John 3:2. 



WHAT THEK IS CHEISTIANITY ? 225 

part of what the world has hitherto called ^^saintliness" — 
a cultivation of the personal virtues, with absolute disre- 
gard of duties to f ellowmen — is mere evasion of duty and 
far from the admirable thing it has long been conceived 
to be. Indeed, the world is nearly ready for the assertion 
that the greater the ^^saint'^ the greater the sinner. In 
this warfare, the ^^slacker^' will find little tolerance. The 
old Roman proverb, Unus Christianus est nullus Chris- 
tianus — one Christian is no Christian at all — had a good 
deal of truth wrapped up in its five terse words. Quietism 
is not, as JSTietzsche declared, the logical development of 
the gospel, but its antipodes. 

Religion begins historically in clan ideas, in the totem 
and taboo, and not in individual seekings after God. It 
is in its essence and inmost fiber social, and all its institu- 
tions have a social origin. Hence redemption must be a 
social process. Regeneration is not individual, because 
sin is not individual. But a minute fraction of human 
evil, if any fraction at all, concerns a single person only. 
Sin is social ; its consequences affect the entire social group, 
as well as the erring individual. The cure of sin must 
therefore be as much social as individual. We must learn 
to think of sin as an offense against our fellows primarily, 
an offense against God in our fellows. This larger view 
of sin will revolutionize Christianity, and make it once 
more the social force its Founder designed it to be. 

When we thus conceive God and his relations to us, re- 
ligion takes on a richer meaning than we can find in the 
writings of Paul. His teaching is not false, but in large 
part outgrown. His appeal is too much to the individual 
soul to secure salvation by individual faith. This is a 
gospel of selfishness, that falls below the best ethical stand- 
ard of the world outside the Church — a world that has 
come to acknowledge, if not to practice consistently, the 
truth that there is in man an instinct higher than self- 
interest, the instinct of love, altruism, thought for the 



226 FUIs^DxVMElNJ^TALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

other man. The Church can never win on its present 
lines, which are the lines of Paulinism. It needs a re- 
vival of true religion more sorely than those whom in its 
complacency it calls ^^the unsaved." Of course, those 
within the pale of the Church cannot easily be persuaded 
that they are not among the securely '^saved/' yet the 
real fact is that their case is often more hopeless than that 
of the ^^unsaved/' because they are so steeped in religious 
conceit and so ignorant of what real ^^salvation" is. 

The revival that the Church needs is therefore one that 
will lift it out of its present complacency and selfishness, 
that will make it hear the call of God to the heroic in man, 
that will appeal to that capacity for struggle and self- 
sacrifice which is the true image of God in us. The 
Church needs a revival that will inspire it to put far away 
the desire of glory and happiness and ease, that will make 
it listen to the divine voice that holds out to us as our re- 
ward of service, not a lazy heaven, but the joy of creation, 
the glory of bringing good out of evil, beauty out of ugli- 
ness, order out of chaos — the stern joy that warriors feel, 
not the allurements of pleasure and luxury. For ours is 
a warrior religion. Let hedonism be our philosophy of 
life, but let it be that exalted hedonism which values most 
the joy of battle, the joy of struggle, the joy of toil. After 
all, religion is the Great Adventure. It satisfies the deep 
Wanderlust of the race, and affords full scope for the 
red-blooded man's fighting instinct, his passion for achieve- 
ment of the w^orth while. 



What is Christianity ? Is it democracy ? The Church 
of the Messiah in IsTew York, to which men like Robert 
Collyer and Minot J. Savage have ministered in the past, 
which has honorable traditions as a Unitarian church, has 
disclaimed Ilnitarianism as too narrow for its present 



WHAT THEiS' IS cheistia:s'ity ? 227 

conceptions of religion and has transformed itself into 
^^Tlie Community Chiirch of New York." Is it necessary 
or probable that Christian churches generally will repudi- 
ate their historic names and traditions for some demo- 
cratic or socialistic title more expressive of their new ideals 
and aspirations ? If religion is to be identified hereafter 
with democracy it behooves us to understand what is dem- 
ocracy and in what it differs from historic Christianity. 

Beyond a doubt historic Christianity as a whole has been 
undemocratic. With few exceptions, all forms of organ- 
ized religion have had an aristocratic basis. Oligarchies 
of ministers or bishops have ruled Protestantism, and at 
times Catholicism, while in these later centuries Roman 
Catholicism has become an absolute monarchy. There 
can be no permanent modus vivendi between such Chris- 
tianity and democracy — one or the other must eventually 
hold the field. Only a democratic religion can survive 
among a democratic people. 

Democracy and real Christianity have a common ethical 
basis, for democracy is the rule of right. Hegel was jus- 
tified in his theory of the State as an organism, with a 
supreme claim on its members, but wrong in making force 
the living spirit of this body. Eight, the common wel- 
fare, is the animating spirit of organic society. 

Democracy and genuine Christianity have a common 
goal, for democracy is liberty and Christianity has always 
been proclaimed as deliverance. Professor Thomas II. 
Green once defined liberty as ^ ^positive power or capacity 
Avhich each man exercises or holds through the help or 
security given him by his fellowmen, and which he in 
turn helps to secure for them." Liberty is not freedom 
from restraint, but power to do and enjoy. The few re- 
straints necessary in a civilized society, to prevent any 
from trespassing on the equal liberty of all, are so far 
surpassed by the increment of privilege and capacity to do, 
as to be negligible. That is precisely the conception of 



228 ' FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

Christian freedom taught in the 'New Testament — not a 
surrender of anything worth while, but the acquisition of 
new power and privilege. Both democracy and Chris- 
tianity mean that every man and woman shall enjoy a 
free personality in a world of equal opportunity. There 
will always be diversities of gifts and achievements, and 
these diversities should be presumed to be greater, not 
less, in a state of freedom than our present state of partial 
slavery. Social equality does not mean social identity, 
but it will ahvays be better for the world that many should 
have silver in their pockets than that a few should have 
gold. 

Both democracy and Christianity insist on the worth 
and dignity of the individual, as well as on the value of 
social institutions. Both demand that every human soul 
shall be treated as an end ; the exploitation of the present 
order treats him as a means. Man should live for his 
own perfectibility, not as a machine for producing wealth 
for another man. The exploitation of human life and 
human liberties that has gone on for a century in America 
under the pretext of equal economic opportunity for all, 
is no more democracy than Russian autocracy was democ- 
racy. 

All genuine ideas of democracy find powerful support 
in the teachings of Jesus ; while the best that we can say 
of the writings of Paul is that they need not be construed 
as opposing democracy. But the teaching of Jesus can- 
not be harmonized with a materialistic democracy. Ma- 
terial prosperity was not his ideal, though he distinctly 
taught that all men might and should have a sufficiency« 
When we have won the means of living for all, we must 
still turn to Jesus to learn what to do with life. Let us 
not be surprised if for a time democracy does not fully 
comprehend which is the graver problem of the two, since 
all its energies are just now required for the solution of 
the first. Objectors to all proposals made for the ma- 



WHAT THE]Sr IS CHRISTIANITY? 229 

terial betterment of mankiiid are quick to point out that 
the present state of mind of the proletariat affords no 
bright prospect of the higher sort of progress. They 
argue that workingmen fail to use for self-improvement 
any leisure gained by shortened hours of labor, and that 
they therefore deserve no further concessions. 

But what reason was there to expect any immediate en- 
thusiasm for culture among workingmen? Was it to be 
rationally supposed that the deadening monotony of their 
grinding toil would give them an appetite for the higher 
things surpassing that of their employers ? Is it not true 
that, with vastly greater opportunity and encouragement, 
the employers often have as little love of culture as their 
workmen, and use their leisure as badly, if a little differ- 
ently ? And if this be indisputably true, is it not absurd 
to blame the working-man for being no more high-minded 
than his present social betters ? Give him time to become 
accustomed to some leisure, and opportunity to acquire a 
taste for literature and music and art by placing these 
things more easily within his reach, and after a genera- 
tion or two if his mental grade is no higher than that of 
the present ^^tired business man,'^ it may possibly be timely 
to criticise his low tastes and small achievement. 

Our reproaches of the laborer for his lack of interest in 
the higher things are not so much hypercritical as hypo- 
critical. We are not really surprised that he prefers his 
newspaper to poetry and philosophy, cheap fiction to Thack- 
eray and Turgenieff; that he would rather hear ragtime 
than symphony; that he goes to a ball game rather than 
to an art gallery on a holiday. Is not the same true of 
ourselves, in spite of our pretense of superior ^^culture'' ? 
In our self-conceit, we say of the ^%wer classes," as we 
contemptuously call them, that they have no capacity of 
enjoyment, when the higher pursuits are in question. 
Perhaps we are right ; but let us consider how little they 
have by comparison of surplus energy, of stimulus, of 



230 FUISTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

leisure, above all, of knowledge. If their tastes are crude 
and their pleasures unrefined, it is not for us to judge 
them, since we have for generations deprived them of 
opportunity to cultivate their spiritual natures. 

The taunting challenge is often flung at the workers 
that they only envy the rich, and that at bottom their 
chief desire is to wear diamonds and dine at the Waldorf- 
Astoria. Even if that were true, what of it ? If the so- 
called better class can find no higher use for its wealth 
than to spend it in vulgar display and the gratification of 
sense, is it so discreditable to the workers that they desire 
the same things that most please their supposed ^^betters" ? 
The rich buy pictures — art is usually a good investment — 
but do not love them. The rich buy books — one must have 
a ^^library'' in the house — but do not read them. The 
rich go to the opera — it is the best place to show off dress 
and jewels — and talk throughout the performance. One 
recalls Mark Twain's reply to a chattering hostess: ^^You 
really must come to our box again Friday night ; they give 
Faust then.'' ''Charmed/' said Mark; ''I don't think I 
have heard you in Faust." 

Equally misplaced is that oft-heard bemoaning of democ- 
racy's contentment with mediocrity, its jealousy of genius 
and even of talent, its lack of graciousness and charm, its 
deadly monotony. All these things are true, more or 
less, of democracy thus far, as they have been true of aris- 
tocracy at times. They are true of democracy, not be- 
cause they are inseparable from it, but because democracy 
has been engaged in a stern fight for existence and has 
therefore had little surplus of leisure or wealth to cultivate 
the fine art of living. Yet it might not be amiss for 
these mourners to recall that it was in the democratic cit- 
ies of Greece that art and letters most highly flourished ; 
and that the next most distinguished period of culture is 
found in the Italian democracies of the fifteenth century. 

What are some of the other faults of democracy ? Dem- 



WHAT THEiSr IS CHRISTIANITY? 231 

ocracy is vicious? Yes, but democracy might lend its 
vices to serve as the virtues of aristocracy. Democracy is 
inefficient? So Germany said; but the Marne and Ver- 
dun were France's answer, and Chateau-Thierry^ Saint-Mi- 
hiel and the Argonne were America's. It has not yet 
been demonstrated that democracy is inefficient, even for 
war; but better muddle than tyranny, if we really must 
choose between the two. It is not clear as yet that we 
must have either. 

A distinguishing trait of Jesus is his trust in human na- 
ture. His unshakable faith in God included faith in 
man, as made in God's likeness. Pessimism was impos- 
sible to him. Many who profess to be his disciples lack 
his belief in the indefinite perfectibility of man ; they pro- 
fess as their faith that man has no possibilities save pos- 
sibilities of evil. But Jesus saw in man capabilities of 
all good, and saw him realizing his wealth of future ex- 
cellence. One who understands this attitude of Jesus, 
and makes it his own, comes at length to comprehend that 
democracy is an elemental force. To describe anyone as 
^^a champion of democracy" or ^^a foe to democracy" is 
as ludicrous as to call anyone a friend or foe of gravita- 
tion. In the case of either force it is wholly a question of 
the individual's getting himself aligned with it and acting 
in accordance with it, or being crushed. When Mrs. 
Partington tried to sweep back the Atlantic, she did not 
imdertake a more hopeless task than that of an opponent 
of democracy. 

The remedy for the defects of democracy is more dem- 
ocracy; education — ^not in the narrower sense of instruc- 
tion, but in the wider sense of the harmonious training of 
all human faculties, alike of body and mind. Meiis sana 
in corpore sano will still do as a condensed formula, with 
a sufficiently liberal interpretation of mens. We have 
been making ^^education" too exclusively concerned with 
the acquirement of ^^all kinds of delightful and useless 



232 FUlS^DAMEl^TALS OF CHRISTIAIS^ITY 

learning/' and too little with character. Euskin was on 
the right track when he said that the learner should be 
trained ^*^not so much to know what he would otherwise 
not know, but to behave as he would not otherwise be- 
have." With a large construction of ^^behave/' as covering 
all human conduct, this would be an excellent ideal of ed- 
ucation in a democracy. 

IvTot the late war merely, but unseen influences of dec- 
ades have been hastening the world's drift towards democ- 
racy. Royalty long ago disappeared in England, like the 
cat Alice saw in Wonderland, until nothing is left of it 
but the smile. The King is an imposing figure-head for 
great state functions, or in a more private way a gracious 
layer of corner-stones or a disiiified opener of museums, 
but as to power — England's King is only a gown and a 
crown. Royalties that are not thus content to be reduced 
to ciphers will soon be wiped off the world's slate alto- 
gether. 

Democracy is the result of a long process of evolution, 
in which the underlying Power of the universe has been 
expressing his character in man and society. So we are 
able to profess as our faith, ^^God is democracy" with 
quite as much confidence as when we say, ^^God is love." 
But democracy is just beginning to modify religious 
thought, so long cast in the molds of monarchy and aristoc- 
racy. The theologian has been saying for ages that the 
history of mankind is the awful record of continued and 
wilful rebellion against God. Democracy suggests a new 
reading of the history of the world. Written in rocks or 
books it is one story : the glorious record of a painful search 
after God, a sublime outreach of man towards a higher 
goodness. Man never ^^fell" — he has always been strug- 
gling upwards after the good and true, stumbling and 
tumbling often, but always up and on again. 

From first to last we find the story of man to be a con- 
structive process ; a more and more perfect social organism 



WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 233 

has been the everlasting goal. All nature has travailed 
together to bring forth man — ^body, brain, intelligence, 
ethical perception, social institutions. If there had been 
an easier way to produce man and human society, it is 
rational to believe that God would have chosen it. If 
there were any less thorny path for man to climb the 
heights of being than by strife and bloodshed, would God 
not have taken it? The late dreadful war is of a piece 
with the whole development of this planet, as geology and 
history tell the story. 

Thus far, it must be conceded, that while destructive 
forces have been always in existence, and at times have 
been so active that they seemed on the point of overwhelm- 
ing humanity in one red ruin, out of apparent chaos and 
death have in the end always emerged life and order and 
beauty. Shall we not have faith that such will continue 
to be the event? 'Not only has the history of the world 
been a record of social progress, but religion has been the 
decisive factor in that progress. We may trace the stages 
of social melioration by the gradual elevation and purifi- 
cation of men's ideas regarding God and duty. The high- 
est point in civilization yet reached is coincident with a 
clearer apprehension of the principle that the welfare of 
the individual, and even his very existence, is conditioned 
on the welfare of society. 

Yet the pulpit still proclaims its old gospel of individu- 
alism, ^^Eedemption is individual. You cannot get ahead 
one inch except on that basis.'' (^) But the experience of 
centuries assures us that you cannot get ahead more than 
an inch on that basis. Eeal, substantial progress is pos- 
sible only on the basis of a redemption that is neither indi- 
vidual nor social exclusively, a redemption that is indi- 
vidual and social. The salvation that Jesus offers has 

(^) Bishop William Fraser McDowell, "In the School of Christ," 
New York, 1910. He, however, soon qualifies this assertion, by say- 
ing of Christ, *'His plan included a saved man, a saved society, a 
saved world/' Lecture II. 



234 rUNBAMENTAXS OF CHEISTIANITY 

been too narrowly conceived and proclaimed: as an indi- 
vidual process with incidental results on society. We are 
coming to conceive it as fundamentally a social enterprise, 
with incidental results on the individual. The individual 
and society mutually act and react. For this new concep- 
tion of religion we go to Jesus, not to Paul. 

yi 

We see then that a final answer to the query, What is 
Christianity? is conditioned by our notion of the content 
of "Christianity." That content is large, for it includes 
a philosophy, a religion and a cult. The philosophy of 
Christianity, or Christian theology, is purely intellectual. 
As a religion, Christianity signifies a life, the means by 
which men try to form and maintain right relations with 
God and their fellows. As a cult, Christianity means the 
Church and its worship, rites and sacraments. 

All these elements are necessary; each is indispensable 
in its place. The religious life must have a rational basis 
to make it permanently possible, and the cult is impera- 
tive to stimulate the emotional fervor without which the 
life languishes. Any form of religion that lacks either a 
theology or a cult, lacks vitality. Deism was a consistent 
philosophy and inculcated a high ideal of life, but it had 
no cult and so it died. Comte took warning from that 
failure and tried to provide a cult for his Positivism, but 
it was too fantastic for success. Frederic Harrison has, 
however, for more than a generation maintained at least 
a semblance of a positivist cult in London, but he has suc- 
ceeded by virtue of making his Positivist society a feeble 
imitation of a Christian Church. 

A philosophy of religion is possible only as it proceeds 
from belief that there is a God about whom we know 
something, and that we can come into satisfactory rela- 
tions with him. Hence the controlling element in such 



WHAT THEN IS CHKISTIANITY ? 235 

a philosophy is the ideal of God with which we begin and 
from which we proceed through all our deductions. It 
has clearly appeared in the course of our discussions that 
Jesus and Paul give us quite different ideas of God. 
These ideas are so very different that inferences cannot be 
drawn from both of them combined^ while inferences 
drawn from either taken by itself lead to conclusions so 
unlike that at times they can hardly be recognized as re- 
ferring to the same God. The two philosophies that result 
from taking Jesus or Paul as fundamental authority re- 
garding God are at variance almost as radically as any 
form of Christianity differs from Buddhism. Historic 
Christianity has followed Paul. It is the main object of 
this book to convince readers that the Christianity of the 
future must follow Jesus. 

And therefore it cannot be admitted that Christianity 
is reducible to mere ethics, or even to ^ ^morality touched 
by emotion/' as Matthew Arnold defined religion. Ethics 
may be said to be the science of values in their relation to 
conduct as a whole. It is the interpretation of the moral 
experience of the race, by discovery of the principles im- 
plicit in the experience. It thus becomes the evaluation 
of all values for the purpose of life. The only decisive 
test of ethical values is reality — ^^revelation" cannot over- 
ride fact. What we seek is the unity of experience in the 
interest of truth. 

But ethics is also the art of living, the application of 
the discovered principles to the events of daily life. Here 
ethics coincides with religion, without becoming identical 
with it. Religion and ethics agree that the ultimate value 
is the welfare and character of mankind. Good conduct 
is that which tends to promote human welfare or develop 
the highest type of character; bad conduct is the reverse. 
We call justice, truth, benevolence, chastity, virtues be- 
cause experience proves that their practice has been pro- 
motive of general welfare and character. Polygamy was 



236 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

esteemed virtuous for centuries, but has become vicious 
because of observed social effects. Drunkenness and gam- 
bling, once uncondemned and then tolerated, are now uni- 
versally stigmatized as vices, because they uniformly pro- 
duce deterioration of character and increase human misery. 

^^Virtue'^ and ^^Vice'^ are fluid terms. The duty of 
almsgiving is extolled by Jesus and Mohammed and reck- 
oned as a virtue in all religions. It was a virtue in a 
social condition where it was the only possible alleviation 
of human misery, but indiscriminate almsgiving is any- 
thing but virtuous in our day. The public and private 
provisions for systematic relief of suffering are now so 
numerous and so great, that the giving of alms without 
careful inquiry is merely offering a premium to profes- 
sional beggary, the attempt of a certain class to live with- 
out work. A former virtue has become a vice, in which 
many people persist because their heads are even softer 
than their hearts. ^^Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
thyself'^ has long been taken as warrant for handing the 
poor a small coin and leaving them to wallow in their 
riotous and sordid slums. It is now seen that we love our 
neighbor only if we try, not merely to relieve his imme- 
diate hunger and nakedness, but to extricate him from his 
poverty and make him share our prosperity. Society is 
beginning to apprehend that all enterprises for the mere 
relief of distress are vicious, and that what is demanded 
is a determined and intelligent campaign for its cure. 

If it be objected to this analysis of conduct that its 
basis is the old discredited hedonism of Aristotle, it may 
be replied that ^^happiness" has been enlarged to include 
all those experiences of spiritual satisfaction that result 
from the noblest activities. It was sheer perversity that 
made Carlyle denounce hedonism as a "pig philosophy." 
Hedonism may be so narrowed as to become inadequate 
as an ethical theory, and like nearly everything it may be 
perverted, but Christian theologians should be slow to con- 



WHAT THEN IS CHRISTIANITY? 237 

demn it after proclaiming for centuries the happiness of 
Heaven as the goal of all Christian effort. 



The discussion of the preceding pages has been little 
else than detailed exposition of three propositions, which 
together form a syllogism : 

There has been progressive apprehension by man of the 
character of God^ and of his purposes in the creation and 
maintenance of this universe. 

This progressive knowledge of God is contained, in its 
highest form, in the Jewish and Christian collections of 
literature known as the Old and New Testaments, or the 
Bible; and it culminates in the words of Jesus, as pre- 
served in the Gospels. 

The teaching of Jesus is therefore Christianity — ^the 
norm of religious truth — and all other teaching must be 
compared with it and corrected by it. Whatever vdll not 
bear that test must be laid aside as part of the outworn and 
outgrown garments of religion. 

These propositions are uncomplicated with any theo- 
logical speculations regarding the person of Jesus. Obvi- 
ously, if true at all, they are equally true whether Jesus 
was human or divine. It is for those who have followed 
the author patiently through these pages to say how satis- 
factorily the above propositions have been sustained. 



APPENDIX 

CONSPECTUS OF N. T. TEACHING ON ATONEMENT 

Those who trust in themselves that they are orthodox, 
and set all others at naught, make great professions of close 
adherence to the Scriptures. They assert the teaching of the 
New Testament especially to he that Christ died as a substi- 
tute for sinners. All other teaching regarding Atonement 
they denounce as heresy and a denial of the supreme authority 
of the Bible. They have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar 
they shall go. Following is a list of the chief passages in the 
New Testament relating to Atonement, literally translated 
into current English, and classified according to their teach- 
ing. The list is believed to be approximately exhaustive; at 
any rate, it is fully representative of all the different types of 
teaching ; and if any important passage has been omitted, it is 
by inadvertence, and not to evade any difficulty that it might 
present. It will be seen that only a single text (I Pet. 2 :24) 
even seems to teach substitution ; and that is a reminiscence of 
Old Testament poetry, the language of emotion, not of exact 
scientific definition. 

1. Atonement Due to Divine Love. 

John 3:16, For God so loved the world that he gave his 
Only-Begotten Son, that every one who trusts in him may not 
perish but have eternal life. 

Kom. 5:8, But God made known his own love unto us, 
in that while we were sinners Christ died in our behalf. 

II Cor. 8:9, For you know the gift of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, that he became poor for your sakes, though he was 
rich, that you might be enriched by his poverty. 

238 



APPENDIX 239 

Eph. 5 :25, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also 
loved the church and delivered himself up for her sake. 

Tit. 3 :4, But when the love toward man of our Saviour 
God appeared . . . which he poured out on us richly through 
Jesus Christ, our Saviour. 

I Jn. 3:16, In this we know love, that he for our sakes 
laid down his life. 

I Jn. 4:9, God^s love was made evident in our case by 
this : God sent forth into the world his Son, the Only-Begot- 
ten, in order that we might live through him. 

2. Object of Atonement. 
(a) to remove sin. 

Eom. 5 :6, Christ died in behalf of the ungodly. 

Eom. 5 :8, While we were yet sinners, Christ died in our 
behalf. 

Eom. 5:19, For as, by means of the disobedience of the 
one man, the many were constituted sinners, so also by means 
of the obedience of the one, the many will be constituted right- 
eous. 

Eom. 5:21, Him who did not know sin, he made sin(^) 
for our sakes. 

Eom. 6:10, For in that he died, he died to(^) sin, once 
for all. 

Heb. 9 :26, To put away sin he has been manifested. 

I Pet. 2 :24, Who himseK bore our sins in his own body 
on the tree. 

I. Pet. 3:18, Because also Christ suffered once for all in 
behalf of sin, the righteous in behalf of the unrighteous. 

I. Jn. 3 :5, And you know that he appeared to take away 
sins. 

(6) to vindicate God's character. 

Eom. 3 :21, 26, Apart from law, a righteousness of God 
has been manifested ... by means of trust in Jesus Christ 

(^) That is, treated him as if he were a sinner. 
(*) The probable meaning is, "He died with reference to sin," or 
"in relation to sin," 



240 rUNBAMEK'TALS OF CHEISTIAT^ITY 

... for exhibition of his righteousness in the present time, 
to the end that he may be jnst and the justifier of him who is 
of trust in Jesus. 

3. Atonemen't^ How Effected. 
(a) hy the death of Christ. 

John 3 :1415, As Moses lifted np the serpent in the wil- 
derness, so must the Son of Man be lifted np, that every man 
who trusts in him may have eternal life. 

II Cor. 5:14, For the love of Christ constrains us, who 
judge this: that one died in behalf of all; therefore they all 
died. 

Heb. 2 :9, That he by God^s grace, in behalf of every one 
might taste death. 

See also Eom. 5 :8 and I Jn. 3 :16 nnder (1) ; Eom. 5 :6, 
8; 6:10; and I Pet. 2:24, under (2) ; and Heb. 9:15 nnder 
(5). 

All passages referring to ^^the cross'^ (such as Gal. 6:14; 
I Cor. 1:18; Heb. 12:2) or to being ''crucified with Christ/' 
(such as Gal. 2:20; 6:14) also belong to this phase of the 
teaching. 

(J) through Christ s lloodQ) 

Matt. 26:28, For this is my blood of the [new] (') cove- 
nant, which is poured out for the sake of many [unto remis- 
sions of sins]. 

Mk. 14 :24, This is my blood of the covenant, which is 
poured out for the sake of many. 

[Lk. 22 :20, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, 
which is poured out in your behalf.] 

Jn. 6 :53-55, Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man 
and drink his blood you have no life in yourselves. He that 
feeds upon my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life . . . 
For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. 

T) "The blood is the life," Deut. 12:22; cf. Lev. 17-11. 
(*) Words in brackets are probably interpolations into the orig- 
inal text. 



APPENDIX 241 

Eph. 2:13, You who were once far off, are now made 
near in Christ^s blood. 

He'b. 9:13, 14, For if the blood of goats and bulls . . . 
sanctifies to the purification of the flesh, how much more will 
Christ's blood. 

Heb. 9 :22, Apart from shedding of blood comes no re- 
mission. 

Heb. 10:4, For it is impossible that the blood of bulls 
and goats should take away sin. 

Heb. 10:29, The blood of the covenant; also 13:20. 

Heb. 13:10, Jesus, that he might sanctify the people by 
means of his own blood. 

I Jn. 1 :7, And the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us 
from all sin. 

Eev. 1:5, To him who loved us and freed us from our 
sins by means of his blood. 

Eev. 7:14, These are they who came out of the Great 
Persecution; and they washed their robes and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb. 

4. Atoneme:n^t Effects Forgiveness of Sins. 

Acts 5:30-32, Jesus, whom you killed . . . did God 
exalt ... to give . . . remission of sins. 

Acts 13:38, By means of this man, remission of sins is 
proclaimed. 

Acts 26 :18, The Gentiles, to whom I will send thee . . . 
that they may receive forgiveness of sins. 

Eph. 1:7, In whom we have . . . the forgiveness of our 
trespasses. 

Heb. 1 :3, When he had made a purification of sins. 

I Tim. 1 :15, Jesus Christ came into the world to deliver 
sinners. 

5. Atonement Described as Kansom. 

Matt. 20:28, For the Son of Man came not to be served, 
but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom instead of many. 
Mk. 10:45 is a parallel passage. 



242 FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAIS'ITY 

Eom. 3 :24^ Justified freely by his gift, by means of the 
ransom that is in Christ Jesns. 

I Cor. 1:30, But of him are you in Christ Jesus, who be- 
came wisdom to us from God, and righteousness, and sancti- 
fication, and ransom. 

Gal. 3:13, Christ ransomed us from the law's curse, hav- 
ing become a curse in our behalf. 

Gal. 4:5, God sent forth his Son . . . that he might 
ransom those under law. 

Eph. 1 :7, In whom we have the ransom by means of his 
blood. 

Eph. 1 :14, Who is the pledge (or first payment) of our 
inheritance until the ransom (payment in full) of the pur- 
chase. 

Eph. 4:30, In whom you were sealed unto a day of ran- 
som. 

Col. 1 :14, The Son of his love, in whom we have the ran- 
som. (^) 

I Tim. 2:16, For God is one; one also is a go-between 
of God and men, Christ Jesus, a man who gave himself as a 
ransom for the sake of all. 

Tit. 2 :14, Who gave himself in our behalf^ that he might 
ransom us from all iniquity. 

Heb. 9:11, Christ as a high priest ... by means of his 
own blood entered once for all into the holy places, obtaining 
an eternal ransom. 

Heb. 9 :15, He is a go-between of a new covenant, in 
order that, death having occurred for a ransom of the trans- 
gressions under the first covenant, those that have been 
called might receive the eternal inheritance. 

I Pet. 1:18, Not with perishable things . . . were you 
ransomed . . . but with precious blood of Christ, like a 
lamb blameless and spotless. 

Eev. 5 :9, Worthy art thou to take the roll, and open its 
seals. Because thou wast slain and didst purchase for God 

(^) The words following in the A. V., "through his blood," are 
almost certainly a lat^r interpolation. 



APPEIiTDIX 243 

with thy bloody out of every tribe and tongue, and people, 
and nation, and made them a kingdom and priests to our God. 

6. Atonement Desceibed as ^'Mercy-Seat'^(^) 

Eom. 3:25, Whom God set forth as a mercy-seat, by 
means of trust in his blood. 

I Jn. 2 :2, And he is a mercy-seat with reference to our 
sins; and not for ours only, but for the whole world. 

Heb. 2:17, That he might become a merciful and a faith- 
ful high priest in things pertaining to God, to be a mercy- 
seat for the sins of the people. 

7. Atonement Desceibed as Saceifice. 

I Cor. 5 :8, For Christ, our passover, was sacrificed. 

Heb. 5:1, Every high priest ... is appointed ... to 
offer both gifts and sacrifices in behalf of sins. 

Heb. 5:7, Who is not under a daily necessity ... of 
offering sacrifices, for this he did once for all, in offering 
himself. 

Heb. 9 :14, Christ . . . offered himself without blemish 
to God; also verses 26, 27. 

Heb. 10 :10, Through the offering of Jesus Christ^s body 
once for all. 

Heb. 10 :12, But he, having offered one sacrifice in behalf 
of sins. 

Heb. 10:14, For by one offering he has perfected forever 
those who are sanctified. 

8. Atonement Desceibed as Eeconciliation. 

Jn. 12 :32, And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to 
myself. 

Eom. 5 :9, 10^ For if, while enemies we were recon- 
ciled to God by means of his Son^s death, much more, being 
reconciled, we shall be delivered by his life. And not merely 

(^) A meeting-place, for reconciliation, of God and man. A. V. 
"to make reconciliation"; other translations "to make propitiation.'^ 



244 FUISTDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIANITY 

that, but [shall he] exulting in God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, by whose means we have now received the reconcilia- 
tion (cf. 11-15). 

II Cor. 5 : :18-20, And all things are from God, who rec- 
onciled us to himself by means of Jesus Christ, and gave to us 
the service of reconciliation : namely, that God was in Christ 
reconciling a world to himself, not reckoning to them their 
trespasses and having committed to us the message of the 
reconciliation. On behalf of Christ therefore, we act as am- 
bassadors, as though God were entreating through us: we 
beseech, on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God. 

Eph. 2:16, That he might reconcile both [Jews and Gen- 
tiles] in one body to God by means of the cross. 

Col. 1 :20, 21, And by means of him to reconcile all things 
to himself, having made peace by means of the blood of his 
cross . . . And you he has reconciled by the body of his 
flesh by means of death. 



INDEX 



Page 

Abelard 186 

Abraham 136, 158, 176 

Descendants of 1B6 

Adam and Eve IBS 

Adam's sin 159 

Alexander 78 

Altruism 106 

Ambrose, Saint 106 

Amos 1^ 

Anselm 149, 186 

Anthropology 90 

Apocalyptic discourses ... 8 

Apollos 199 

Apostles 96, 150 

Aquinas, Thomas 149, 204 

Arabia 145 

Aratus US 

Aristotle 104,236 

Arnold, Matthew. .12, 70, 235 

Asia Minor 98 

Asiatic cults 218 

Assisi, Francis of .94, 154 

^ Assyria 78 

Athanasius 149 

Athenians 56 

Atonement, blood 194 

Conspectus of 238-244 

Doctrine of. .178, 179, 185, 202 

Ethical theory of 186, 194 

Gretian theory of 186, 194 

Pagan 186 

Pauline teaching of 192 

Vital process of 198 

Augustine.. 49, 183, 204, 218, 

219 
Aurelius, Marcus 30, 104 

Babylonia 78 

Barnabas 141 

Barrow, Bishop 94 

Beatitudes, of Luke 4, 5 

Of Matthew 5, 6 

Bernard of Clairvaux ...104 

245 



Page 

Bible ix, xxiii, 34 

Infallibility of xviii 

Origin xviii 

Place in religion xviii 

Schools xi 

Biology, study of 89 

Blood atonement 194 

Brotherhood, of Kingdom. 91 

Buddha 39, 52 

Bunyan, John 85, 155 

Caesar, Augustus 98 

Calvin, John.. 4, 149, 176, 218 

Calvanism 171, 175 

Catholics xi, 33 

Cephas 141 

Christ, death of 201 

"Chosen" people 68 

Life 110 

Work 114 

Christianity xv, 66 

Errors of 214, 215 

Failure of 97 

What is it? . . .209, 213, 219, 
226, 233 

Chrysostum 115 

Church of the Messiah. . .226 

Church, the 211, 212 

Clement 218 

Coins 25 

Collyer, Robert 226 

Community Church of 

New York 227 

Comte 52, 234 

Confucius 1, 39 

Constantine 77, 150 

Conversion 83 

"Corban" 57 

Corinthians 120, 134 

Cult of Comte 52 

Cybele 99 

Dionysius 99 

Peter and Paul 96 



246 INDEX 

Page 

Cybele 99 

Cynics 105 

Damascus 140, 151, 153 

Dante 169 

David 14, 73 

Day of Atonement 200 

Decatur xxiii 

Deliverance 100 

Individual 106 

Promised 106 

Way of 203 

Deliverer.. 167, 198. 205, 221 
Democracy. .226, 227, 228, 232 

Its mediocrity 230 

Its efficiency 231 

Defects, remedy for ...231 

De Monarchia 169 

Dionysius, cult of 99 

Disciple of Jesus, defined. Ill 

Divine revelation 33 

Catholic theory of 33 

Protestant theory of 33 

Spirit 19 

Doctrine of justification. .198 

Of total depravity. .169, 170 

Domitan xx 

Ecclesia 210 

Edwards, Jonathan 103 

Egypt 78 

Election, interpretation of.l71 

By Luther 172 

By Paul 172, 175 

A Jewish idea 173 

Incompatible doctrine. .175 

Elijah 49, 174 

Elisha 68 

Elizabethan period 95 

Empires, Assyria, Baby- 
lonia, Egypt, Persia ... 78 

Epictetus 104 

Epistles of Paul ix 

Erasmus 4 

Ethical penalty 164 

Transgression 164 

Ethics, defined 235 

Evangelicals xi, 84 

Fatherhood of God 65, 66, 170 
Fellowship defined 112 



Page 
First commandment of the 

law 70 

Gospel 50 

Followers of Jesus 82 

Forgive, Greek derivation 

of 195, 196 

Forgiveness, defined 179 

Divine 179 

Of God 180, 181, 182 

Of sins 184 

Fourth Gospel 20, 28, 69, 108, 

209 

Fox, George 32 

Francis of Assisi 94, 154 

Friends 31 

Galilee 21, 63, 171 

Scenes in 21 

Gamaliel 218 

School of 158 

Gehenna 102 

Genesis x, xi, 223 

To Revelation 135 

Gnosticism 159 

God as Sovereign 154 

God's Law 163 

Love, extent of 103 

Good Samaritan 73 

"Gospel," definition of 108 

First 50 

Fourth ....28, 69, 108, 209 

Of Jesus 64 

Great Commission 67 

Greco-Roman civilization . 218 

Greek theories 104, 105 

Art 105 

Ethics 105 

Green, Prof. Thomas H. . .227 
Grotius 186 

Hagar 136 

Harrison, Frederic 234 

Hebrew poetry 10. 11, 12, 

17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25 

Hedonism 104, 226, 236 

Hegel 61, 227 

Hell, definitions of 102 

Herod 49 

'•Holiness," conception of 113 
Service of 114 



INDEX 



247 



Page 

Holy Catholic Church 77 

Of Holies 200, 207 

Spirit 180 

Dwells in believers 148 

Spoke through Paul.. 144 

Individualism in religion . . 90 
Infallibility, demand for.. 34 

Inspiration 34 

Insufficiency of formal obe- 
dience 197 

Irenseus 9 

Isaiah 14 

Torvjpo "141 

Jehovah. .34, 98,' 113] 173,' 183 

Jehoshua, meaning of 98 

Jeremiah 49 

Jerusalem 78 

Destruction of 62 

Jesus 

Condemns wealth. . . .94, 95 

Crucifixion of 49 

Death of 201 

Duties to man 71, 75 

Ethical teachings of... 96 
Great paradox of.. 106, 107 
Injunction to disciples. .147 

Message of 76 

Mission of 98 

Name of derivation 98 

Not a professor of sociol- 
ogy 89 

Personality of 137, 138 

Prophet and teacher... 28 
Authority as... 28, 29, 30 

Epigrams 41, 42 

Ethical sobriety 39, 40 

Hyperbole of 41, 42 

Irony of... 44, 45, 46, 47 
Metaphors used.. 35, 36, 37 

Methods of . 30 

Paradox of 41, 42 

Simplicity of 32 

Theology of 33 

Wit and humor of.. 37, 38, 
39, 40, 41, 43 
The Herald of the King- 
dom 76 

Goal of 84 



Page 
The Herald of the Kingdom 

The Messiah 31, 59, 60, 

140, 157, 158, 205 

The peasant poet 1, 9, 

10, 14 

Education of 2 

The people's poet 13 

Human interests, love 

of poor 20 

Love of nature 14, 15, 

18, 19 

The revealer of God 54 

Instruction in laws . 63 
Recognition by Gali- 
leans 49 

Sends out disciples 52, 56 

Sets aside laws 63 

The Saviour of the 

World 98 

The Son of God 59 

The theologian 178 

Jesus of Nazareth... 148, 156 
Discourse at Nazareth. 173 

Public life of 148 

Works of 167 

Jewish sacrifices 157 

Jews ix, 68, 92, 116 

Johannine writings 69 

John XX, 141, 161 

The Baptist 49, 102 

Josephus 2 

Judaeo-pagan nations 159 

Justification for punish- 
ment 165 

Kipling 89 

Kingdom of God 76, 77, 78, 

79, 81, 82, 87, 88, 100, 105, 
148, 170, 171, 209 

Coming of Ill 

Orthodoxy of 176 

Law of the Jungle, the. . 90 

Levi, tribe of 92 

"Life," defined 108 

Lord's Supper 134 

Louis Quatorze 95 

Lowell 113 

Luke 67, 185 

Luther, Martin. 4, 86, 155, 199 



248 



Page 
Malachi 92 

Mammon, worship of 93 

Marcan discourse 62 

Mark 15, 62, 185 

Matthew 67, 185 

Melanchthon 108, 149 

Message of Jesus 76, 184 

Messiah 156, 157 

Messianic hopes 156 

Messianic work 157 

Micah 14 

Millenial doctrine xx 

Milton 135 

Mohammed 1, 39, 236 

Mohammedamism ...xvi, 236 

Moses 14, 39, 56, 72, 155 

Book of 31 

Mystics 105, 106 

Naaman 68, 174 

Nazareth 167, 174 

Nero XX 

New Christianity ...211, 212 

Jerusalem 102 

Testament. ix, xvii, 76, 81, 

83, 86, 183, 206, 228, 238 

Nietzsche's superman ...224 

Nicodemas 44, 111 

Old Testament Scriptures, 2, 
101, 144, 156, 159, 183 

Omar 194 

Origen 218 

Palestine, fauna 18 

Landscape 15 

Life 15 

Palm Sunday 47 

Parables, of lost coin 167 

Lost sheep 167 

Lost son 167 

Mark's 16, 17, 18 

Pharisee and publican .. 180 

Significance of 68 

Two slaves 73 

Paraclete, the spirit of 

truth 147, 150 

Paradise Lost 10 

Paul XV, 56, 66, 69, 92, 96, 

97, 101 



INDEX 

Page 
Paul, the ambassador ...162 

The apostle, code of 138 

Conversion of 140 

Exhortations of 136 

Influence of Christ on.. 142 

Making of 137 

Meditation of 141 

Mission of 141 

Personality of 138 

Paul, the Christian Rabbi.161 

The evangelist 118 

The scapegoat 183 

The speculative theolo- 
gian 178 

Paulicians 219 

Pauline theology 158 

Gospel 183 

Teaching 191 

Writings 199 

Paulinism 184, 218, 220, 

224, 226 

Paul's apostolic call 149 

Conception of God 162 

Doctrine of atonement. .187, 

188, 189, 190, 204, 205 

Doctrine of the cross.. 159 

Epistle to the Hebrews. 199 

Epistles 221 

Ethics compared with 

Jesus 132, 134, 135, 136 

Exegesis of Old Testa- 
ment 136 

Gospel 142, 145 

Great doctrines 222 

Humor 126, 127 

Idea of *'Law" 197 

Irony 128 

Justification of self ...157 

Loyalty to Master 155 

Maxims 133 

References 123, 124, 

125, 126 

Relation to Jesus 142 

Revelations 142, 143, 

144, 145 

Sarcasm 128 

Wit 126,127 

Writings 119 

Literary forms of.. 128, 
131 



INDEX 



Page 
Writings 

To Corinthians 120 

To Ephesians 121-133 

To Gallatians 123, 136, 

144, 158 

To Romans 120, 144, 158 

Pentateuch 118 

Pericope xx 

Persecution xx 

Persia 78 

Person and office of Christ 97 
Perversion of teachings of 

Jesus 97 

Peter 32, 96 

Fall 96, 97 

Pharisees 36, 47, 56, 57, 

58, 72 

Pilate 169 

Pilgrim's Progress 10, 86 

Pope, infallibility of 148 

Positivism 234 

Poverty 94 

Premillennarians xx, xxi 

Priests 50, 51 

Procrustes, bed of 215 

Prodigal 168 

Prolegomena ix-xxiii 

Prophets 50 

Propitiation 207 

Protestant religion, form 
of 85 

Churches 99 

Providence of God 171 

Purification for sins 200 

Puritans, superstitions .... 39 

Temperament 43 

Quietism 225 

Rabbi 147 

Redemption 109, 110 

Reformation 4, 86 

Religion, defined 215, 216 

Of democracy 136 

Origin 225 

Philosophy of 234, 235 

Renaissance 95 

Renan 37 

Renunciation, law of 109 

Repentence, defined 81, 83 



249 

Page 

Revelation x, xi, xix, 102 

Revivals 99 

Roman Catholics, mission 

of 99 

Empire. . .xx, 77, 78, 79, 161 

Imperator 77 

Law 176 

Ruskin 109, 232 

Sacrifices 190 

Sacrificial system of Jews 200 

Sadducees 31 

Salvation, defined 110, 166 

For the Jew alone 174 

Ideals of 104 

Ideas of.. 100, 104, 166, 224 

Nature of 99 

Right view of 112 

Samuel 14 

Sanhedrin 60 

Saul 140 

Appearance of Jesus to 

140, 151, 152 

Alone 151 

Effect of vision on Saul 154 

Not objective 152 

To Saul's spirit 152, 153 

The Urban Pharisee. . .115 

Ambitions 117 

Boyhood 116 

Conversion 118 

Denial of Jesus 140 

Education 118 

Environment 119 

Hatred of Jesus 139 

Inspirations 121, 122 

Parentage 115 

Persecution of Chris- 
tians 139 

Savage, Minot J 226 

"Saviour" and "Messiah" 

one to Jews Ill 

Septuagint 136, 207 

Sermon on the Mount. .44, 45, 
51, 55, 105, 170, 171, 196 

Siddhartha 1 

Sin 

Rabbinic theology of . . . 159 

Ideas of 166 

Theological notion of... 169 



250 

Page 
Sin 

Forgiveness of 178 

Remission of 185 

Deliverance from 185 

Expiation of 193 

Escape from 193 

Acquittal from 199 

Social gospel of Jesus Ill 

Socinus 186 

Socrates 1, 46, 63 

Solidarity of God and man 92 

Sources x 

Sovereignty of God .' .' .161, 163 

Spirit of Truth 202 

Stewardship 91 

Stoics 105 

Sunday, Billy 100 

Synoptic gospels 4 

Talmud 118 

Temple 47, 51, 61, 69 

Testament, old 2, 101, 144, 

156, 159, 183 

New. .ix, xvii, 76, 81, 83. 86, 

183, 206, 228, 238 

Theodore of Mopsuestia . . 115 

•'Theologian" 161 

Theology, changes in 214 

Distinctive 133 

Problem of 216 

Science of 176 



INDEX 



Page 

Thessalonica 117 

Tithe, Jewish idea of 91 

Truth, 204 

Tyndale 207 

Unity of belief 113 

Valentinian 159 

Vanity Fair 86 

Vicarious, sacrifice . . . 189, 195 

Suffering 205 

Virtue and Vice, compared 236 
Vocabulary of religion .... 112 

Need of change in 112 

Wealth, benefits of 95 

Exploitation of 93, 94 

Moralizing of 95 

Weizsacker 210 

Wells, H. G., definition of 

religion 110 

Woes, 6, 7 

Workingman, attitude of 229, 

230 
Wrath of God 101 

Zaccheus 71 

Salvation of 167 

Zarephath 174 

Zoroaster 1 



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